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Subject: "KILLING OUR OWN" by Wasserman & Solomon
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Summary: The Disaster of America's Experience with Atomic Radiation, 1945-1982
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1993 20:32:25 GMT
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[This contains all 18 parts, concatenated.]
Chronicling the Disaster of America's Experience
with Atomic Radiation, 1945-1982
The following (part 1 of 18 parts) is a complete on-line reproduction of
the text of the 1982 book, "Killing Our Own, The Disaster of America's
Experience with Atomic Radiation," (minus a 2-page map, "Radiation In
America" preceding the Introduction, indicating the locations, as of 1982,
of U.S. nuclear sites--mining, milling, fuel/plutonium processing,
reactors, military deployment/critical assembly facilities, bomb testing
and waste), and is reprinted here with permission of the authors, Harvey
Wasserman and Norman Solomon who own the rights to this book.
Permission to distribute this book is freely given
so long as no modification of the text is made.
It is my hope that others will spend some of their time in a similar manner,
creating on-line copy of out-of-print books, as relevant today as at the
time they were originally published, to provide more and more people with
access to the vital information contained in such works about the details
of the secret, classified-at-the-time-of-its-occurence, history of these
here "United States of America." As Thomas Jefferson once said, "An
informed democracy will behave in a responsible manner."
--ratitor
A PostScript version of this book for hardcopy is available from me:
[email protected]. All text bracketed in braces, "{ ... }" denotes italics.
______________________________________________________________________________
KILLING OUR OWN
The Disaster of America's Experience with Atomic Radiation
_____________________________________________________
Harvey Wasserman & Norman Solomon
with Robert Alvarez & Eleanor Walters
A Delta Book
1982
______________________________________________________________________________
A Delta Book
Published by
Dell Publishing Co., Inc.
1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza
New York, N.Y. 10017
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to use the following
material:
Excerpts from "Three Mile Island: No Health Impact Found" by Jane E.
Brody from {The New York Times,} April 15, 1980; "Nuclear Fabulists"
from {The New York Times,} April 18, 1980; editorial from {The New
York Times,} November 23, 1980. (c) 1980 by The New York Times
Company. Reprinted by permission.
Excerpts from "The Down Wind People" by Anne Fadiman in {Life.} (c)
1980 Time, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
Excerpts from "No Place to Hide" by David Bradley. Copyright 1948 by
David Bradley. By permission of Little, Brown and Company in
association with the Atlantic Monthly Press.
Excerpts from NAAV Atomic Veterans' Newsletters. Reprinted by
permission of the National Association of Atomic Veterans, 1109
Franklin Street, Burlington, Ia. 52601.
Excerpts from the editorial "The Bomb's Other Victims" in the {St.
Louis Post-Dispatch,} December 1, 1979.
Excerpts from the editorial "Old or Dead Before Their Time" in the
{Seattle Post-Intelligencer,} June 17, 1979. Copyright 1979 Seattle
Post-Intelligencer.
Excerpt of letter from Penny Bernstein to authors, used with
permission of Penny Bernstein.
Excerpt of letter from Pat Broudy to authors, used with permission of
Pat Broudy.
Excerpt of letter from William Drechin to authors, used with
permission of William Drechin.
Excerpt of letter from Bob Drogin to authors, used with permission of
Bob Drogin.
Excerpt of letter from Frank Karasti to authors, used with permission
of Frank Karasti.
Excerpt of letter from Alvin Lasky to authors, used with permission of
Alvin Lasky.
Excerpt of letter from George Mace to Joseph Wershba, used with
permission of George Mace.
Excerpt of letter from William Shufflebarger to authors, used with
permission of William Shufflebarger.
Excerpt of letter from Gregory Troyer to authors, used with permission
of Gregory Troyer.
Excerpt of letter from Joseph Wershba to authors, used with permission
of Joseph Wershba.
Excerpt of letter from Warren Zink to authors, used with permission of
Warren Zink.
No copyright is claimed on material from United States Government
works.
Copyright (c) 1982 by Harvey Wasserman and Norman Solomon.
Introduction copyright (c) 1982 by Benjamin Spock.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher,
except where permitted by law.
Delta (R) TM 755118, Dell Publishing Co, Inc.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
First Delta printing
{Designed by Judith Neuman}
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Wasserman, Harvey.
Killing our own.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Radioactive substances--Toxicology--United States.
2. Ionizing radiation--Toxicology--United States.
1. Solomon, Norman. II. Title.
RA1231.R2W36 363.1'79 81-17438
ISBN 0-440-54566-6 AACR2
A hardcover edition of this work is available through Delacorte Press,
1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, New York, New York.
* * * * * * *
Notes
In researching this book, we have conducted more than two hundred
interviews, many of which do not appear in the footnotes. In a number
of cases we have interviewed the same person several times, but have
denoted our talks with them with a single date. In denoting our
printed sources, we have used a number of abbreviations, primarily for
U.S. Government agencies. They are:
ABCC: Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission
AEC: Atomic Energy Commission
CDC: Center for Disease Control
DOD: Department of Defense
DOE: Department of Energy
DHEW: Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
EPA: Environmental Protection Agency
FRC: Federal Radiation Council
FDA: Food and Drug Administration
GAO: General Accounting Office
ICRP: International Commission on Radiological Protection
JCAE: Joint Committee on Atomic Energy
NAS: National Academy of Sciences
NIOSH: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
NRC: Nuclear Regulatory Commission
OTA: Office of Technology Assessment
PHS: Public Health Service
USMC: U.S. Marine Corps
VA: Veterans Administration
* * * * * * *
In 1947 Albert Einstein wrote:
"Through the release of atomic energy, our generation has brought
into the world the most revolutionary force since the prehistoric
discovery of fire. This basic power of the universe cannot be fitted
into the outmoded concept of narrow nationalisms. For there is no
secret and there is no defense, there is no possibility of control
except through the aroused understanding and insistence of the peoples
of the world.
"We scientists recognize our inescapable responsibility to carry to
our fellow citizens an understanding of the simple facts of atomic
energy and its implications for society. In this lies our only
security and our only hope--we believe that an informed citizenry will
act for life and not death."
It is to that faith in an informed citizenry that we dedicate this
book.
Harvey Wasserman
Norman Solomon
Robert Alvarez
Eleanor Walters
* * * * * * *
CONTENTS
Notes
Acknowledgments
{Introduction by Dr. Benjamin Spock}
PART I The Bombs
1 The First Atomic Veterans
2 300,000 GIs Under the Mushroom Clouds
3 Bringing the Bombs Home
4 Test Fallout, Political Fallout
5 Continued Testing: Tragic Repetitions
PART II X Rays and the Radioactive Workplace
6 The Use and Misuse of Medical X Rays
7 Nuclear Workers: Radiation on the Job
PART III The Industry's Underside
8 Bomb Production at Rocky Flats: Death Downwind
9 Uranium Milling and the Church Rock Disaster
10 Tritium in Tucson, Wastes Worldwide
PART IV The "Peaceful Atom"
11 The Battle of Shippingport
12 How Much Radiation?
13 Animals Died at Three Mile Island
14 People Died at Three Mile Island
15 Conclusion: Surviving the New Fire
Appendix A The Basics of Radiation and Health
Appendix B Summary of Atomic Bomb Tests
Appendix C Commercial Nuclear Power Reactors in the U.S.
Appendix D Organizations
Index
* * * * * * *
Acknowledgments
First and foremost we would like to thank Chris Kuppig and Gary Luke
of Dell Publishing, without whose extraordinary efforts this book
could not have been brought to completion. We would also like to
acknowledge the Environmental Policy Center for its role in
establishing the scientific veracity of this book, and in providing
resources for its production. Ron Bernstein, Sr., Rosalie Bertell,
Jay and Laura Kramer, Mary Brophy, Priscilla Laws, Ada Sanchez, Samuel
H. Day, Jr., Monte Bright, Tony Hodges, and Karen Wilson also provided
us with important resources.
There are far too many doctors, scientists, farmers, and other
concerned citizens on whom we have relied for aid and information to
list here. Most appear in the text or footnotes that follow. It
should be clear that this book is very much a product of the
willingness of private citizens to inquire independently into their
own health and that of the community. Therein, almost certainly, lies
the hope of the future health of the planet.
For personal love and support in a demanding venture, we would like
to thank the Walters, Alvarez, Solomon, and Wasserman families; as
well as Kitty Tucker, Shawn Tucker, Amber Alvarez, Ada Sanchez, Anne
Betzel, Joiwind and Journey Williams, Carolyn Stuart, George and Ken
Gloss, Amy Wainer, Alex Coote, John and Nancy Ramsay B. Lynn; the
Chilewich, Shapiro, Stellman, Simon, and Styron families; and the
Montague and Allen farmers.
* * * * * * *
Introduction
by Dr. Benjamin Spock
This is the frightening story of the damage that has already been done
to our own people--to children even more than to adults--by the
unlocking of the power of the atom. It investigates the testing of
our nuclear weapons, the sloppy practices within the nuclear industry,
and the problems with our atomic power plants. It is also about the
future damage to be expected from mutation in our genes from
radiation.
More than three and a half decades have now passed since the first
atomic test at Alamogordo, New Mexico--July 16, 1945--and the
subsequent detonations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since then our own
military has exploded more than 700 nuclear bombs on our own
continental soil and in the Pacific. Many of the health effects are
just now being felt.
It seems no accident that we are currently suffering from a national
cancer epidemic, in which one of every five Americans dies of that
dread disease. It would be plausible and prudent to assume that the
radioactive fallout we've introduced into the global atmosphere,
literally tens of tons of debris from bomb tests alone, is a
significant factor in addition to industrial pollution and cigarette
smoking. As early as the 1950s the American Linus Pauling and the
Russian Andrei Sakharov--both Nobel prize winners--warned that
literally millions of people would die worldwide because of these bomb
tests.
There have been American "guinea pigs" who have amply confirmed
these predictions. As this book documents for the first time, shortly
after the blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, American soldiers were
sent in to help clean up the rubble. They were not warned that there
was a danger in drinking the contaminated water and breathing the
radioactive dust. Many of these men felt the lethal effects of the
bombs' radiation almost immediately. Despite glib assurances from our
government, they have suffered an extraordinary rate of rare cancers
that could only have been caused by that radiation.
Similar tragedies have struck American soldiers present at scores of
bomb tests that followed. From 1945 through the early 1960s, some
300,000 men and women in U.S. uniform were exposed to radiation from
atmospheric, underwater, and underground bomb tests. The military
wanted to know how armies would react to atomic weaponry in war and
they used American soldiers to find out. Though the Pentagon has
insisted all along that there was little or no danger from these
tests, the authors here present irrefutable evidence, which has only
gradually come to light, that many of our GIs have suffered and died
from leukemia, cancer, chronic respiratory distress, progressive
muscular weakness, and mental disturbance. Most tragically of all,
some of their children have been born with physical and mental
handicaps.
Yet in spite of overwhelming evidence, the Veterans Administration
has adamantly refused to admit there is any proof that these illnesses
are service-related, the vets and their widows and children have been
consistently denied compensation. Of course, no individual case of
leukemia or cancer or birth defect carries a label saying exactly what
caused it. But the statistics, gathered by the veterans themselves,
show that the tests were responsible.
With shocking callousness, our government has even refused to
divulge the list of those hundreds of thousands who were deliberately
exposed, a list that would greatly aid in the early detection of
further cancers and save hundreds of lives.
Civilians unfortunate enough to live downwind from the tests, in
towns like St. George, Utah, and Fredonia, Arizona, have also suffered
disease and death. They were assured by the Atomic Energy Commission
that the radiation would not harm them. But in ensuing years they
have been afflicted with an outbreak of cancers and leukemia that
could only have come from the test fallout. Yet, like the veterans,
they have met a stone wall of governmental denial.
Frightening stories are also coming to light among people and
animals living near nuclear weapons facilities, mining and waste
storage sites, uranium processing plants, and nuclear power reactors.
Farmers in central Pennsylvania, for example, began to observe
abnormalities in their animals when Three Mile Island Unit One opened
in 1974. They reported much worse problems in the wake of the
accident at Unit Two in 1979. Many animals became infertile. Others
developed bizarre behavior. Young were born with marked deformities.
These farmers had seen such abnormalities only rarely in the past.
Now they were occurring repeatedly and on many farms. But government
investigators turned in reports that baldly denied a majority of the
abnormalities, which had already been witnessed by neutral observers.
In fact, the investigators never even visited some of the farms they
reported on. They blamed what few disturbances they admitted to
finding on mismanagement and ignorance on the part of the farmers.
Farmers living near the Rocky Flats plutonium factory in Colorado,
near the West Valley atomic fuel reprocessing center in upstate New
York, near a uranium mining waste pile in Colorado, and near four
separate reactor sites--including Three Mile Island--have complained
of similar defects and illnesses among their animals. They have
documented the same kind of problems that first appeared back in the
1950s in sheep caught downwind from nuclear test blasts.
Parallel evidence is now in hand, from private citizens and
independent researchers, that the rates of infant mortality and cancer
and leukemia have risen among humans living near nuclear reactors.
The government response has again been a condescending and blanket
denial.
The government's own record of health studies has been stained with
serious scandal and obvious cover-up. In the 1960s, the Atomic Energy
Commission engaged a topflight expert named Thomas Mancuso to look
into the health of workers at nuclear facilities such as the Hanford
weapons plant in Washington state. But when he discovered, after more
than a decade of research, that there was an elevated cancer rate at
Hanford, the government fired him and tried to confiscate his data.
Other top scientists, including Drs. John Gofman, Alice Stewart, Karl
Z. Morgan, Rosalie Bertell, and Irwin Bross, have been censored,
harassed, fired, or deprived of their grants for standing by their
studies, which showed that humans and animals were being harmed.
Our government set up a massive study of the Japanese victims in
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But the data was kept secret, and it was
later used in a way that brought charges of manipulation and
deliberate suppression of the dangers of radiation. Now, nearly four
decades later, it has become clear that radiation released was ten
times more dangerous than anyone believed possible, not just to those
killed at the time, but to the "survivors" as well.
There are great potential perils in the nuclear power industry that
our government and the utilities consistently minimize. The most
dramatic is the danger of a meltdown, which could kill many thousands
of people immediately, and even more from the aftereffects. The
accident at Three Mile Island revealed that the government and
utilities are not in full control of this technology. They didn't
know for several days what had gone wrong or what to do about it.
There had been carelessness in maintenance. There were not adequate
plans for meeting such a disaster. Part of the equipment was
basically defective in design. The responses of government and the
utility at the time, and later, to charges that radiation had already
harmed infants and animals, showed again that their predominant
impulse was to reassure the public that nothing serious was wrong and
that there was no real danger--even when there was no technical or
moral basis for such statements.
There are also problems related to the low-level radiation that
leaks from all these reactors. {Killing Our Own} documents two
cases--Three Mile Island and Arkansas Nuclear One--where strong
evidence has been collected indicating an increased infant mortality
rate from these emissions. Some scientists have charged that infant
mortality rates have risen around other reactors as well. Yet neither
the government nor the industry has ever conducted a definitive
nationwide survey of cancer and infant mortality rates near atomic
reactors, though one would be easy enough to perform.
Danger also arises from the production of nuclear fuel and its
transport, and the transport and permanent storage of nuclear wastes,
the latter being a problem for which even the government admits it has
no solution. As this book documents, health problems have already
arisen from even the short-term storage of these deadly radioactive
poisons. Yet government and industry leaders continue to try to
reassure us.
All of this has long since convinced me that we cannot trust these
people and, more important still, that nuclear power is too dangerous
to have around. But it is clear that our government is so deeply
committed to nuclear weapons and nuclear power that it will ignore
damning evidence, deny the truth, mislead our people, jeopardize
health and even life itself, and try to blacken the reputation of
scientists who disagree with its policies.
Atomic testing in the atmosphere was ended by the test ban of 1963.
However, the testing has continued underground, on the assumption that
radiation can be confined. The current administration has called for
even more tests. But many of these explosions have vented dangerous
amounts of radiation. The infamous Baneberry test in Nevada leaked
thousands of times more radiation than the accident at Three Mile
Island.
Is this dangerous testing really necessary?
A couple of years ago, Norris Bradbury, a former director of the Los
Alamos Laboratory, where the first atom bomb was designed, and Hans
Bethe, a recipient of the Nobel prize for his accomplishment in
nuclear physics, wrote a petition (endorsed by the Federation of
American Scientists) to President Carter asking to end the testing.
They pointed out that the mechanical reliability of our nuclear
weaponry had been proved "almost exclusively by nonnuclear testing";
it has been "rare to the point of nonexistence" for a nuclear test to
be required to resolve any problem in our nuclear weapons arsenal. So
why go on?
I earnestly believe that as soon as there is a definite suspicion of
harm from any source as malignant as radiation, it is time to make
every effort to eliminate it. I feel particularly strongly about
radiation because children are much more vulnerable than adults--not
only in regard to the likelihood of developing leukemia and cancer,
but also of being born with physical or mental defects. And once
mutations have been produced in genes, they will be passed down
forever.
What right do we have to threaten with deformity or death those who
are too young to protest or those still unborn? What right do we as
adult citizens have to allow our government to take this power for
evil into its hands?
Such harm would be bad enough if there were no alternatives. But I
believe that the perilous and senseless accumulation of nuclear
weapons and their dispersal to more and more nations could be ended if
our citizens would demand that our government stop stalling and get on
with the negotiation of a true disarmament with the Soviet Union. The
damage being done by the mere building of these bombs at places like
Rocky Flats would then also be eliminated.
We could solve the problem of our energy needs without the multiple
risks of nuclear power if our government would provide leadership for
energy conservation and the development of nonpolluting, renewable
sources such as the sun, the wind, the tides, the burning of wood.
Only you, as aroused citizens, can stop the terrifying plague of
nuclear power and nuclear weapons. But first you should read the
estimates of past and future damage assembled here, in order to make
up your mind independently. Then, if you are convinced, you will be
well-motivated to exert your full influence.
______________________________________________________________________________
P A R T I
___________
The Bombs
* * * * * * *
1
The First Atomic Veterans
Like many millions of other Americans, Marine Corporal Lyman Eugene
Quigley reacted to news about Hiroshima and Nagasaki with relief.
A tall, large-framed, handsome man with straight black hair, bushy
eyebrows, and a friendly countenance, Quigley had enlisted in the
Marines soon after Pearl Harbor, at the age of twenty. Leaving his
job assembling electric motors in his native Illinois, Quigley went
through boot camp and advanced training in California; by spring 1943
he was on a troop carrier in the South Pacific, headed to Australia
and New Zealand.
As part of the 2nd Marine Division, during more than two years in
the Pacific, he saw combat at Tarawa, Okinawa, then Tinian and Saipan.
Quigley remained in the Mariana Islands, working in a Marines
bulldozer crew, clearing away an air base for B-29s loaded with
explosive bombs and--twice--with atomic weapons.
"All we knew was the war was over, and some kind of special bomb had
been dropped," Lyman Quigley recollected a third of a century later.
"All I was thinking was, the war was over, I'm coming back. We were
so happy, we were going home. But it didn't turn out that way.
Unfortunately."[1] After the long-awaited formal surrender took place
on September 2, Quigley's orders sent him not home, but toward
Nagasaki.
Peace notwithstanding, U.S. wartime censors kept both Hiroshima and
Nagasaki off limits to journalists until mid-September. "The war was
ended, as we had reported, but the censorship was not," wrote George
Weller, a Pulitzer prizewinning war correspondent. "What the command
wanted covered was the [POW] prison camps of northern Japan. . . .
away from where the war had been decided a month earlier."[2]
Violating the U.S. Government's edict that declared all southern
Japan forbidden to the press, Weller headed to the Japanese island of
Kyushu; on September 6, 1945, he became the first known civilian
Westerner to enter Nagasaki since its atomic bombardment, arriving
four weeks after the nuclear assault. "When I walked out of
Nagasaki's roofless railroad station, I saw a city frizzled like a
baked apple, crusted black at the open core . . ."[3]
Weller climbed a nearby hill, gaining an overview. "The long inlet
of the main harbor looked eerily deserted, with the floating lamp of a
single freighter smoking off the blistered, sagging piers and twisted
derricks. We could see the main Mitsubishi plant, a long fallen
Zeppelin of naked, twisted steel, bent like a child's structural toy
crushed by a passing foot. Its form was still almost intact, though
it was almost directly under the bomb. The sturdiness of the ceilings
had taken the blast and blocked the ray. The workers were more
fortunate than their families in the one-story bungalows around the
plant. They did most of the dying."[4]
A U.S. military inspection team was dispatched for the nuclear-
ravaged cities, reaching Hiroshima on September 8 and going on to
Nagasaki a few days later. "In all the areas examined, ground
contamination with radioactive materials was found to be below the
hazardous limits," the U.S. Army's official history states.[5] Within
two weeks after its inspection team began surveying the two Japanese
cities, the War Department announced that scientists had ascertained
that the residual radiation in Nagasaki did not merit concern. The
situation was unprecedented, however, and understanding of nuclear-
fission particles' effects was in its infancy. On September 23, U.S.
occupying troops disembarked at Nagasaki harbor--forty-five days after
the bombing.
"They came along in Jeeps," Kayano Nagai recounted a few years
later. She was four years old as she watched the occupiers enter her
home city. "Daddy told me they were Marines and lots of them were
college students. They were all very nice and they had very good
manners, and whenever we said 'Haro' they gave us chocolate and
chewing gum."[6] Much of Nagasaki was in ruins. Kayano's mother and
an estimated eighty thousand other Nagasaki residents were dead from
the atomic bombing; thousands of others were in agony.
"We walked into Nagasaki unprepared, and we were shocked as hell at
what was there," Lyman Quigley remembered many years later. "Really,
we were ignorant about what the hell the bomb was. We had no idea
what we were going to see. We weren't given any instructions
whatsoever. We were amazed, shocked--and yet stupefied." It was a
grisly scene. Corpses were still being burned in the open air.
"Women's hair was falling out, the men all had their heads shaved, and
all of them had running sores on their heads, ears, all over."[7]
At the time, gruesome as the panorama of suffering was, it seemed to
involve only other people's problems. Quigley and fellow members of
Company C, 2nd Pioneer Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, made their way
up a steep hill from the docks; about 150 strong, the Marines of
Company C billeted at a partially destroyed concrete schoolhouse up
the hill from the spot over which the atomic bomb had exploded.
Orders from above did not include any unusual precautionary
guidelines or provisions. Quigley and his buddies drank city
reservoir water, and worked in the midst of the most heavily damaged
area without any protective clothing or special gear. They were not
provided with radiation-dose badges or any other equipment to measure
their exposure to radioactivity.
Quigley was in charge of a Marine bulldozer crew razing what was
left of wrecked structures, cleaning up rubble, clearing out roads,
and leveling the ground. For Company C Marines the long days settled
into a busy routine amidst the dusty debris--bulldozing, hauling,
standing guard duty in the blast center area by day, sleeping in the
makeshift camp at the schoolhouse by night. Quigley bought some silk
kimonos for his sister and some young women friends back home. But
there was little time or incentive for sight-seeing.
Toward the end of autumn many of the Marines were sent out of
Nagasaki. On November 4, after forty-three days of working in the
radioactive rubble of Nagasaki, Corporal Quigley received a Good
Conduct medal ("We used to call it a Ruptured Duck," he quipped with a
chuckle) and later that month shipped back to the States.
"When I got back, I had burning, itching, running sores on the top
of my head and the top of my ears," Quigley recalled. The sores
looked to him like those on Nagasaki's residents. He called the
running sores to the attention of a doctor during a routine discharge
examination in December 1945. "They listed that in my medical records
as a fungus, which is wrong--I know that now." Also: "I had a warm
feeling in my lips. I remember that distinctly."[8]
On December 21, 1945, Lyman Eugene Quigley received an honorable
discharge from the Marine Corps. On the surface his military service
had the trappings of a traditional all-American tale. The troubling
radioactive underside, with its ironic and disturbing twists, would
not become apparent to him for decades.
------
1. Lyman Quigley, and Bernice and Ron Quigley, interviews, November 1978;
in addition, authors obtained hundreds of pages of medical and military
service records in Quigley's claim file at the regional Veterans
Administration office in Portland, Oregon.
2. David Brown and W. Richard Bruner, eds., {How I Got That Story} (New
York: E. P. Dutton, 1967), p. 209.
3. Ibid., p. 211.
4. Ibid., p. 217.
5. William S. Augerson, M.D., Director, Health Care Operations, Department
of the Army, Office of the Surgeon General, to Harry Shaich, University
of Oregon Health Services Center, February 25, 1975, quoting from
{Radiology in World War II} (Medical Department, U.S. Army, 1965).
6. Takashi Nagai, {We of Nagasaki} (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce,
1951), pp. 19-20.
7. Quigley interviews.
8. Ibid.
------
A Hollow Triumph
Five months previous to Lyman Quigley's return home, the President of
the United States was contemplating the new vistas of atomic energy.
"We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the
world," President Harry S. Truman wrote in his diary two weeks before
the United States exploded nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "I have told the secretary of war, Mr.
Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and
sailors are the target and not women and children." The atomic bomb,
President Truman noted, "seems to be the most terrible thing ever
discovered, but it can be made the most useful."[9]
Truman was weighing options left in the wake of an experimental
detonation of the first atom bomb on July 16, 1945. A nuclear blast
named Trinity, set off in the New Mexico desert, had been a
spectacular triumph for participants in the supersecret Manhattan
Project, which developed the bomb.
But some Manhattan Project researchers were uneasy about the new
weapon. Warnings, like the confidential Franck Report, which
scientists presented to War Secretary Stimson, urged demonstration of
an A-bomb at a sparsely populated spot. However, as a chief drafter
of the Franck Report, Dr. Eugene Rabinowitch, remarked later, ". . .
the American war machine was in full swing and no appeals to reason
could stop it."[10]
At the U.S. War Department, senior officers believed "it was very
important to prove the bomb a successful weapon, justifying its great
cost," observed David H. Frisch, a physicist who worked on the
Manhattan Project. Frisch remembered that America's military
strategists were eager "to use the bomb first where its effects would
be not only politically effective but technically measurable."[11]
Manhattan Project director General Leslie R. Groves recalled that it
was "desirable that the first target be of such size that the damage
would be confined within it, so that we could more definitely
determine the power of the bomb." For the same reason criteria for
targeted cities included absence of previous bombardments.[12]
Thirty-five years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
the U.S. Government was listing them as "Announced United States
Nuclear Tests."[13]
"Nobody really knows how many people were killed in Hiroshima:
anywhere from around 60,000 to 300,000," comments Dr. Robert Jay
Lifton, whose study of A-bomb survivors won the National Book Award.
"The city of Hiroshima estimates 200,000. It depends upon how you
count, which groups you count, whether you count deaths over time.
And it depends on emotional influences on the counters. It is of some
significance that American estimates have tended to be lower than
Japanese."[14]
Japan's dazed hierarchy in Tokyo had little time to assess the
unprecedented, catastrophic chaos of Hiroshima. Three days later
another searing flash--this one fueled with plutonium instead of
uranium and detonated with a more sophisticated implosion apparatus--
devastated Nagasaki. In both cities, despite Truman's diary vow,
women and children were among the primary sufferers. Included were
several thousand Americans of Japanese ancestry, stranded in Japan
when the war began.[15] And at least eleven American POWs being held
in Hiroshima died from the bombing.[16]
"All concerned should feel a deep satisfaction at the success of the
operations," Brigadier General Thomas F. Farrell reported about the
Nagasaki bombing in a memorandum to General Groves.[17] But when the
war ended a few days later at the Los Alamos atomic weapons laboratory
in New Mexico, according to journalist Lansing Lamont, "more than one
scientist walked cold sober into the dark of that August night and
retched."[18]
United States policymakers certainly were anxious to convey the
image of a return to normality as soon as possible in Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. When U.S. occupation troops reached Nagasaki in late
September 1945, they were there to help calm a jittery world.
Entering Nagasaki six weeks after the nuclear bombing, about one
thousand Marines and a smaller detachment of Navy Seabees were
billeted in the demolished core area around the blast center.
Assigned cleanup duties, they arrived as U.S. military-command press
releases announced that scientists had found no lingering radiation
worth worrying about in Nagasaki. Two weeks later, in less extensive
operations, U.S. Army troops moved into the Hiroshima area.[19]
What they endured in ensuing decades closely resembles the ordeals
of a wide range of American radiation victims, consistently ignored
and denied at every turn by the very institutions responsible for
causing their problems. Accorded no place in official histories, many
of these U.S. veterans suffered privately, with debilitating and often
rare health afflictions as they reached middle age. Some developed
terminal illnesses affecting bone marrow and blood production--the
kind of biological problems long associated with radiation exposure.
Others found that at unusually early ages they were plagued by heart
attacks, severe lung difficulties, pain in their bones and joints,
chronic fatigue, and odd skin disorders.
The ultimate question of the controversy about these veterans is
whether they later suffered significantly higher rates of diseases
compared with average occurrences among other American males of their
age. Were serious illnesses among those veterans merely random--or
were they part of a pattern of extraordinarily high ratios of
particular diseases linked to their stints in postbomb radioactive
rubble?
Normally among American men in their late fifties one would find
multiple myeloma bone-marrow cancer at an average rate of about one-
half case per one thousand, according to standard medical incidence
tables.[20] So ordinarily perhaps one case of multiple myeloma might
be expected to develop later among the one thousand U.S. Marines
routinely present within about a mile of the atomic blast center point
of Nagasaki during the last week of September 1945. We have found
five cases of multiple myeloma among those particular Marines--an
extremely high incidence of the terminal bone-marrow disease.
Additional blood-related afflictions--such as Hodgkin's disease,
myelofibrosis, and leukemia--have been documented by the veterans, and
their widows. And other painfully insidious illnesses became common.
------
9. Robert H. Ferrell, ed., {Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry
S. Truman} (New York: Harper & Row, 1980); diary entry July 25, 1945,
published in {The Oregonian} (Portland), October 12, 1980.
10. Richard S. Lewis and Jane Wilson, eds., {Alamogordo Plus Twenty-Five
Years} (New York: The Viking Press, 1971), p. 4.
11. Ibid., p. 254.
12. Ibid.
13. U.S. DOE, {Announced United States Nuclear Tests, July 1945 Through
December 1979} (Las Vegas: DOE Office of Public Affairs, 1980), p. 5
(hereafter cited as {Announced U.S. Nuclear Tests}).
14. Robert Jay Lifton, "The Prevention of Nuclear War," {Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists}, October 1980, p. 38.
15. Approximately six hundred survived and returned home, mostly to
California and Hawaii. Although U.S. citizens, none were able to gain
medical assistance from their government for persistent health effects
of being subjected to nuclear attack. See {San Francisco Chronicle},
May 12, 1979, p. 30; also, {American Atomic Bomb Survivors. A Plea
for Medical Assistance} (San Francisco: National Committee for Atomic
Bomb Survivors in the United States, 1979), available from Japanese
American Citizens League, 1765 Sutter St., San Francisco, CA 94115.
16. "Government documents and the testimony of former servicemen indicate
that the United States has been concealing information about the
deaths of these men for 34 years," historian Barton J. Bernstein
concluded in 1979. The American government maintained its long
silence about the POW deaths, the Stanford University professor
contended, "so as not to weaken, impair or damage the reputation of
U.S. leaders and to block any moral doubts at home about combat use of
the atomic bomb." (United Press International, dateline San Francisco,
reporting on July 23, 1979, press conference by Barton Bernstein.) See
also {New York Times}, August 21, 1979.
17. Anthony Cave Brown and Charles B. MacDonald, eds., {The Secret History
of the Atomic Bomb} (New York: Dial Press, 1977), p. 534.
18. Lansing Lamont, {Day of Trinity} (New York: Atheneum, 1965), p. 268.
19. Interviews with several dozen American veterans of Nagasaki cleanup.
Also, U.S. DOD, {Hiroshima and Nagasaki Occupation Forces} (Washington,
D.C.: Defense Nuclear Agency, 1980); U.S. DOD, {Radiation Dose
Reconstruction U.S. Occupation Forces in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan
1945-1946} (Washington, D.C.: Defense Nuclear Agency, 1981).
In some respects the U.S. servicemen's atomic cleanup experiences in
Japan resembled events more than thirty years later in the South
Pacific. In the late 1970s, about three thousand American GIs--some
wearing surgical protective masks--obeyed orders to clean up Eniwetok
atoll radioactivity left by scores of nuclear tests at those islands.
The three-year, $100 million cleanup project was backed by Defense
Nuclear Agency officials eager to show that islands in the radiation-
covered atoll could be made habitable. (See Steve Rees, "84th Eng Bn
Exposed to Cancer Causing Elements on Clean-up Mission: But Why?"
{Enlisted Times}, August 1979, pp. 5, 19.)
20. White House Domestic Policy Staff Assistant Director Ellen L. Goldstein
to Committee for U.S. Veterans of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, December 18,
1979; available from Committee, P.O. Box 14424, Portland, OR 97214.
------
A Legacy Comes Home
In the fall of 1946--a year after the atomic bombings of Japan--Lyman
Quigley settled down in Portland, Oregon, where he went to work for
the city transit company operating streetcars and buses. Very soon he
began suffering acute abdominal attacks. "I'd wake up and be doubled
up in pain at night. It kept getting more and more severe. I got
haggard-looking. I can't describe it to you. You'd have to go
through it to know what it is. Excruciating."[21] In December 1951
doctors removed Quigley's appendix. The severe stomach pains,
however, persisted. He later developed stomach tumors.
One day, in March 1953, Quigley's lungs hemorrhaged suddenly,
bleeding for over a week. A scar formed on a lung. He was thirty-one
by then--married, and a father. "The doctors told me they couldn't
figure out what was going on. This is when I first got a suspicion."
More than twenty-five years later his memory was vivid about the day
in the summer of 1953 when he spoke to his doctor about the bulldozer
work in Nagasaki's radioactive rubble. "The doctor starts to diagram
on the blackboard about the atom and the half-life and all this stuff.
And all of a sudden he turns to me and says, `I wish you wouldn't come
see me anymore.'"[22]
In the late 1950s a painful lump grew out of Quigley's head.
Surgery removed the tumor, diagnosed as a lipoma (tumor of fatty
tissue). Later doctors took out "a tumor about the size of a hen
egg"[23] from the back of his knee. Pain and weakness in his legs
persisted. By this time Quigley was having trouble breathing; he was
diagnosed as having "chronic obstructive lung disease." At the age of
forty-three, he suffered a heart attack--the first of five.
Missed work and medical bills outstripped insurance coverage by many
thousands of dollars. "We borrowed on the house, borrowed money on
the car, borrowed money on the insurance policies we had," Quigley
recounted.[24] In the early 1970s worsening health problems forced
him into retirement. Monthly Social Security disability payments of
about $300 and a Teamsters union pension of $140 did little to ease
the financial strain. His wife of a quarter century, Bernice, started
working in hospitals to counter the awesome financial toll.
In the autumn of 1978 Lyman Quigley received visitors at his house
in northeast Portland. Pain-racked but determined, he sat next to a
kitchen table piled high with correspondence from the Defense
Department, Veterans Administration, and nongovernmental scientists.
Thirty-three years after going ashore in Nagasaki, for Quigley, atomic
and personal histories had become inextricably meshed.
He was a quintessential American man, raised in the Depression era,
proud of his military service. His political views were mainstream;
his favorite magazine, {Reader's Digest}. What set him apart was his
belief that an unreported part of history had been telescoped into his
own body, his organs and cells--and, he feared, perhaps into the
genetic heritage passed on to his children, Ron and Linda, now in
their twenties.
"When my father first started putting facts together and came to the
realization that his illnesses might stem from exposure to radiation,
we found that this was more frightening than the unknown," Ron
remembered. "It was not only frightening but also it was financially
and emotionally draining for me and my family. . . . I can remember
times my father would isolate himself in another part of the house for
two or three days at a time, he had such pains in his heart, his legs,
his chest, and shortness of breath, so much so that he was unable to
participate in family activities or even simple things such as getting
the mail or sitting outside for a short time."[25]
For a score of years, with increasing intensity, Lyman Quigley had
read everything he could get his hands on about atomic fallout and
radiation effects. In {Radiation,} an authoritative book by Ralph E.
Lapp and Jack Schubert, he found documentation that the Nagasaki
reservoir water he and fellow Marines had drunk so freely was probably
radioactive. About a mile from Nagasaki's nuclear blast center,
"there was a fall-out at the Nishiyama reservoir area, where a total
dosage of as much as 100 roentgens may have been delivered"[26]--a
serious dose of radiation if absorbed into the human body.
Quigley had attempted to file a claim for service-connected benefits
with the Veterans Administration in the fall of 1973, contending that
his severe health deterioration resulted from radiation exposure while
a Marine in Nagasaki. The VA official he spoke with dissuaded Quigley
from filing a claim, saying there was no chance of approval. Two
years later Quigley went back and insisted on filing a claim. In
January 1976 the VA issued a denial.
After a hearing in Portland the following year the VA sent him a
ruling dated March 10, 1978, reaffirming the rejection. "Service-
connection for residuals of radiation exposure involving the heart,
lung, stomach, head and knee is not warranted," the VA decision
declared. "His present disabilities have been determined to be of
nonservice-connected origin."[27]
In Nagasaki "radioactivity decayed very fast and was all gone within
five weeks of the blast," said a scrawled VA memo in Quigley's claim
file.[28] In a 1976 letter, Dr. John D. Chase, then chief medical
director of the VA, wrote: "Navy records indicate that ships did not
approach Nagasaki until so long after the atomic blast that any
residual radiation which might have existed would have been
negligible."[29]
But by now Quigley understood that the Nagasaki bomb exploded with
plutonium, known to lodge in human lungs and other internal soft
tissue; plutonium diminishes so slowly that it will take twenty-four
thousand years for half of its deadly alpha radiation to decay. Other
radioactive isotopes left by an atomic bomb include strontium 90, a
"bone-seeking" form of radioactivity remaining highly toxic for many
decades, and cesium 137--which is assimilated by muscles.
Lyman Quigley pursued a hunch. He suspected that his was not an
unusual case among veterans, now scattered throughout the United
States, who had traveled up that Nagasaki hill with him as part of
Company C, 2nd Pioneer Battalion, 2nd Marine Division.
After three decades it was not easy to track down Marine buddies
from the Nagasaki cleanup days. Adding to the logistical obstacles
for Lyman Quigley, life had long since become almost steady pain.
Utilizing old address books, yellowed letters, and telephone directory
assistance, by the end of 1978 he had located five men of the Company
C Marines.
In the small town of Sparta in the eastern Tennessee mountains,
Junior Hodge--who was with Quigley on the bulldozers in Nagasaki--had
been living with chronic anemia for the past twenty years. "Seems
like all my strength is going out of me," Hodge told us. One of his
testes had become enlarged, while the other, with a small growth on
it, had almost disappeared. "I ain't got much money, and I can't
afford to go to doctors," he drawled mournfully. Hodge's chronology
of stomach and lung afflictions was virtually identical to Lyman
Quigley's.[30]
In Pittsburgh, Quigley tracked down John Zotter; in Toledo, Ohio,
Willard Good; in Berwyn, Illinois, Philip Leschina; across town in
Portland, William Gender. In addition Quigley located the mother of
Floyd Crews, who had been part of the Company C bulldozing detail; he
had died in 1972.
Quigley took extensive notes and accumulated medical records and
affidavits. A pattern was emerging, with some strikingly similar
ailments among the seven of them. Hodge, Good, Gender, Crews, and
Quigley suffered severe lung difficulties, at times requiring surgery
and in all cases causing chronic breathing problems for decades.
Consistent intestinal attacks, often within a few months after leaving
Nagasaki, became long-term realities of life for Hodge, Zotter,
Gender, Crews, and Quigley; each of those men also experienced
persisting painful conditions in their legs. And a pronounced chronic
infestation of unusual weeping skin sores or ulcerations had been
suffered by Hodge, Zotter, Good, Gender, and Quigley.[31]
Willard Good had begun treatments in the mid-1960s for polycythemia
vera, an excess of red blood cells found in one out of every 250,000
Americans per year.[32] In 1976, at age fifty-three, Good went on
early retirement from his job as a shipping clerk in Toledo.
Most of the men spoke of feeling run down by the time they reached
middle age--as though they were much older than their chronological
years. Time after time medical specialists had been puzzled about
their afflictions.
By mid-1979 Quigley had reached a total of fifteen men--or their
next of kin--who had been stationed with him at that roofless Nagasaki
schoolhouse. Dispersed all over the United States and unaware of each
other's postwar medical woes, most of the men experienced agonizing
health problems at an unusually early age. Six suffered heart
attacks, four of them fatal, before the age of fifty. Serious lung
ailments, ongoing acute stomach pains, bizarre skin afflictions,
aching weakness in leg bones--each of these physical difficulties,
occurring at young ages, was reported for about half of the fifteen
Company C veterans tracked down.[33]
Little more than an hour's drive from Quigley's Portland home, in
the southern Willamette Valley town of Lebanon, lived Company C
veteran William Hoover. "Bill had been lucky, or so he thought,"
Juanita Hoover reflected a year after Quigley had located her husband.
But rapid-fire events ended the Hoovers' feelings of good fortune. In
quick succession, Bill Hoover's wife recalled, "he had a tumor removed
from his hip and a skin cancer from his ear--also a testicle
operation. Then on October 15, 1979, he discovered he had lung
cancer. He had surgery immediately. It had grown so rapidly it had
attached itself to the sac around the heart. They removed two thirds
of his right lung." Hoover nearly died on the operating table.[34]
The fifteen former Marines' health histories that Quigley documented
represented about a tenth of the total number of Company C servicemen
who had been with him in Nagasaki. The fifteen had been a fairly
random sampling, and had turned up a conspicuous pattern of early
onset of particular diseases. What's more, Quigley pointed out, he
had begun to do what the U.S. Government had always been in a far
better position to accomplish, with its resources and access to
records; but the government had never tried, refusing even to lend a
hand to Quigley's efforts.
For Lyman Eugene Quigley--a veteran of Tarawa, Okinawa, and other
bloody battles in the Pacific during World War II--the most tenacious
foes turned out to be severe health impairment teaming up with a
recalcitrant U.S. Government. The new evidence he had uncovered
didn't seem to make any difference to the Veterans Administration,
which turned down his claim again. "I got a willpower to live,"
Quigley said as he leafed through stacks of negative replies under
official United States Government letterheads. "I ain't giving up
yet. I'm not ready."[35] He continued his research work, until a
fifth heart attack killed him in spring 1980 at the age of fifty-
eight.
A few hours after the funeral Bernice Quigley drove across Portland
to meet a group of Japanese atomic bomb survivors who were visiting
the city as part of a speaking tour. As she talked to them, she
learned that a number of her late husband's ailments, including odd
purple spots that would come and go and reappear on his legs, were
quite familiar to the Japanese visitors who had lived in Hiroshima and
Nagasaki when the atom bombs fell.[36] For Bernice Quigley, newly
widowed, an insidious irony had completed a painful full circle.
Fifty miles east of Portland along the Columbia River, former U.S.
Marine Ralph Sheridan Clapp settled down to raise a family after the
Second World War. But ever since the autumn of 1945 his life had
never been the same. "Before I was in Nagasaki, I had a friend who
said I was more like a gazelle than a human being."[37] By the end of
his few weeks of Nagasaki cleanup duties, according to Clapp and
affidavits from ex-Marines who had been in that city with him, severe
breathing problems began. As the years passed, Clapp spent more time
in hospitals for oxygen and diagnostic tests.
In early spring 1979 we visited Sheridan Clapp at the Barnes VA
Hospital in Vancouver, Washington. Clapp sat up in bed, his voice
wheezing but resolute. "It's kind of ironic to go through a war like
that with no scratches, hell in a half-acre, and then wind up like
this," he said. Clapp had seen combat in Okinawa, but it was another
legacy that preoccupied him at age fifty-seven. "I think, really and
truly, the American public needs to be told. We went in there green
as grass. We were just kind of cleaning up in Nagasaki, one thing or
another. You're drinking water and all that, why hell it's all
contaminated; it'd have to be."[38]
Turned down for Veterans Administration service-connected benefits,
Clapp had developed a thick VA claim file containing the same official
assurances--often word for word--as those received by Lyman
Quigley.[39] "Why?" Clapp asked during an interview; looking around
the noisy hospital wing, he responded to his own question: "It must
be all the big money behind nuclear."[40]
Chronic respiratory illness was not the only reason for Sheridan
Clapp's hospitalization in the first months of 1979. Doctors had
discovered a perplexing blood condition, requiring extensive tests as
one after another of the most common blood diseases were ruled out.
During the spring a medical verdict finally came in: Clapp was
afflicted with a life-threatening lack of blood coagulant "factor
VIII"--a condition so rare that no more than one hundred cases had
been reported worldwide in the previous three decades, according to
the hematologist treating Clapp, Dr. Scott H. Goodnight, Jr., of the
Oregon Health Sciences Center.[41]
For Clapp the agony was intense--all the more because he was weary
of hospitals, and what he perceived as political motives for VA
rejections of claims by American veterans exposed to radiation while
in military service. "This country had better get itself in gear if
we're going to survive, that's all I've got to say," he told us during
a hospital visit in March 1979. "All the doggone money in developing
those nuclear plants. I can't understand what they're thinking about.
I'm against any further development of it at all. Absolutely
none."[42] On April 20, 1979, Sheridan Clapp picked up a blunt pencil
and wrote a letter mentioning plutonium and ending with the words:
"Stop these people. Sincerely, Sheridan Clapp."[43] He died five
weeks later.
Sheridan Clapp left behind a widow whose grief combined with
outspoken anger. Two years after her husband's death there was a
little less audible pain in Delores Clapp's voice, but the outrage had
grown stronger. "Sheridan lost his life for his country just as sure
as if he had died on a battlefield," she said, sitting in the living
room of the house their family had shared in Hood River, Oregon. "If
he hadn't been in Nagasaki, he'd be here today to enjoy his grandson.
I feel so strongly about this. If it were just a matter of money, the
government's refusal to admit the truth wouldn't be so important. But
it's the principle of the thing."[44]
------
21. Quigley interviews.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Ron Quigley, {Newsletter}, Committee for U.S. Veterans of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, summer 1979, p. 5.
26. Jack Schubert and Ralph E. Lapp, {Radiation: What It Is and How It
Affects You} (New York: The Viking Press, 1957), p. 219.
27. VA claim determination letter to Lyman Quigley, March 10, 1978.
28. VA "Report of Contact," October 26, 1978, Quigley file, No. C-20-303-320.
29. VA Chief Medical Director John D. Chase, M.D., to Congressman Robert B.
Duncan, December 27, 1976.
30. Junior Hodge, interviews, December 1978.
31. Quigley, John Zotter, Willard Good, Philip Leschina, and William Gender,
interviews, November 1978 to June 1979.
32. Stephen Chandler, M.D., Portland hematologist, interviews, April 1979.
33. Quigley and other fifteen Company C Marines he located, interviews,
November 1978 to June 1979; plus correspondence and medical records.
34. {Atomic Veterans' Newsletter} (National Association of Atomic Veterans,
1109 Franklin St., Burlington, IA 52601), fall 1980, p. 6.
35. Quigley interviews.
36. Bernice Quigley, interviews, July 1980.
37. Ralph Sheridan Clapp, interview, March 1979.
38. Ibid.
39. Authors obtained both Quigley's and Clapp's complete claim files of
record at the VA regional office in Portland.
40. Clapp interview.
41. Scott Goodnight, interview, April 1979. Dr. Goodnight said Clapp's
"factor VIII" inhibitor condition had been diagnosed as being a
noninherited type, which greatly accentuated its rarity.
42. Clapp interview.
43. Clapp to authors, April 20, 1979.
44. Delores Clapp, interviews, May 1981.
------
[part 2 of 18]
Government Response
Beginning in the late 1970s, the federal government publicly
solicited toll-free phone calls from former GIs who were directly
involved in A-bomb tests between 1946 and 1962. But Hiroshima and
Nagasaki veterans were intentionally excluded from the scope of the
telephone data-gathering program. At the Defense Department two of
the project's top officials each admitted personally responding to
about half a dozen such calls or letters.[45]
"We were able to reassure them that they didn't get any significant
exposure,"[46] said Lieutenant Colonel Bill McGee at the Defense
Nuclear Agency (ironically acronymed DNA), a branch of the Pentagon
devoted to governmental assessments of atomic weapons impacts. McGee
and other DNA officers would not tell us how many contacts regarding
Hiroshima-Nagasaki cleanup their agency received.
At the Veterans Administration headquarters a few blocks from the
White House, in January 1979 we inquired about claims for service-
connected benefits based on Hiroshima or Nagasaki residual radiation
exposure. VA Board of Veterans Appeals chief member Irving Kleinfeld
said that "we probably know of a couple of cases" of VA claims in that
category. Kleinfeld added he seriously doubted any other VA official
would know anything more about it.[47]
In the VA's central public-relations office the story was about the
same. When asked whether any claims based on Hiroshima or Nagasaki
residual radiation exposure had ever been filed with the VA, public-
information official Stratton Appleman replied: "We've had none for
the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bomb."[48]
The VA's public-relations machinery was apparently telling other
curious journalists much the same thing. In North Carolina, on
January 21, 1979, {The Charlotte Observer} published an article about
area resident Clifford Helms, fifty-four, a Navy Seabee veteran with
paralysis and kidney trouble who had recently filed for VA benefits
linked to his cleanup assignment at Nagasaki. The {Observer} article,
written by staff reporter Bob Drogin, stated that "Helms is the first
veteran to claim disability based on exposure to radiation from the
atomic bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, according to Al
Rayford, a Veterans Administration spokesman in Washington."[49]
Rayford later denied ever contending that Helms's claim was the only
one due to Hiroshima or Nagasaki radiation.[50] Informed of the
denial, Drogin responded with a written statement: "Al Rayford
unequivocally told me Clifford Helms was the first and only vet to
claim disability based on exposure at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. My
notes are clear on this. Moreover, I specifically asked him this
question several times because it seemed so unlikely to me."[51]
We also called second-level VA officials, some of whose names had
appeared in Lyman Quigley's bulky claim file. The trail led to Robert
C. Macomber, chief of the Veterans Administration rating-policy staff,
a career VA employee who said he had never been asked such a question
before by a reporter. As a matter of fact, Macomber said, he happened
to have more than two dozen Hiroshima-Nagasaki claims right next to
him in his office.[52]
For several hours over the phone Macomber patiently went through the
files, omitting only claimant names, identification numbers, and
addresses to protect confidentiality. Macomber estimated that
approximately fifty such Hiroshima and Nagasaki residual radiation
claims had been filed with the VA nationwide, with about twenty of
those still at regional VA offices and not yet forwarded to
headquarters for appeal. All those claims, he said, had been turned
down.[53]
James (Jack) McDaniel volunteered for the Marine Corps when World
War II broke out--then a tall athletic young man barely in his
twenties. A few years later he was among about two hundred Marines
quartered in a bombed-out waterfront hotel near the Nagasaki blast
center. (As far as they could tell when they met thirty-three and a
half years later, for a few days Sheridan Clapp had been in the same
semidemolished hotel on the waterfront.) Like the rest of the U.S.
troops assigned to cleanup there, he did not receive any precautionary
instructions, radiation monitors, or protective gear.[54]
When discharge came in southern California, just about the only
thing on McDaniel's mind was getting back to his wife a thousand miles
north. He found employment as a diesel mechanic in the woods of the
Pacific Northwest, remaining on the Weyerhaeuser Corporation job for
more than twenty years in southwestern Washington. He enjoyed much
about his life, working in lush forests and appreciating wonders of
nature in the countryside around his home near the small town of
Toutle.
But as time passed, McDaniel's health deteriorated drastically. In
1975 doctors diagnosed Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia, an extremely
rare cancer of bone marrow involving overproduction of blood
protein.[55]
"I don't know if I'll be able to work the next four years to
retirement. I'm going downhill fast," McDaniel said in early 1979.
He spoke wistfully of the past--"I had the consistency of a horse, I
was strong"--and of the government he had trusted for so long: "They
don't want to admit they were wrong to send us in there without any
warning, without any preparation, without any protection."[56]
McDaniel had recently applied, unsuccessfully, for Veterans
Administration benefits based on his stint in Nagasaki;[57] the main
concerns he expressed had to do with the future financial security of
his wife. In the opinion of McDaniel's hematologist, Dr. Richard B.
Dobrow of Vancouver, "the question of [VA] compensation will probably
be answered politically, not medically."[58]
Despite intense pain accompanying his chemotherapy, McDaniel
traveled to Washington, D.C. to speak at a press conference in June
1979. At the Commodore Hotel, near the Capitol, in the morning he met
other press conference participants. Among them were two people who
understood, as few Americans could, what he was going through:
Virginia Ralph, whose ex-Marine husband, Harold Joseph Ralph, had died
in 1978 from multiple myeloma, a brutal form of bone-marrow
cancer;[59] and Harry A. Coppola, a former Marine also suffering from
multiple myeloma. Coppola, McDaniel, and Mrs. Ralph's husband had all
been in the core bombed area of Nagasaki in late September 1945.
Seated in the hotel lobby, McDaniel reached into a manila envelope
and pulled out photos he had kept of Nagasaki's devastation, taken
where he was billeted; Virginia Ralph pulled out her husband's photos
of the Nagasaki rubble where he had been stationed. They were
virtually identical pictures, taken from what looked like the same
spot.[60]
Virginia Ralph, who had lost her husband in a protracted and
terribly devastating death, sat next to Harry Coppola, who had the
same disease's terminal agonies to look forward to in the near future.
Alongside them, Jack McDaniel was losing ground to a deadly cancer of
the same family of blood cells in his marrow. Atomic legacies were
emerging in people's very bones.
Mrs. Ralph was accompanied by her twenty-one-year-old son Mike.
Sorrows of losing a husband and father, in such a terribly painful
way, were still fresh after nearly a year since Harold Joseph Ralph's
death. For Virginia Ralph, a farm wife forced into the workaday world
of secretarial chores in Streator, Illinois, to provide for her
children, the runaround from federal agencies was infuriating. Along
with the government's blanket policy of turning down all claims for
U.S. veterans of Hiroshima and Nagasaki cleanup, she found it
particularly galling that their own government never bothered to do
any systematic study on the health of those veterans--and would not
even admit that such a study was appropriate. "Actually, no one
cared," Mrs. Ralph charged. "And now, the U.S. Government is
stonewalling." She reflected on her husband's inexorable, anguishing
drift toward death at age fifty-four: "The last two years are better
forgotten. The last ten days of his life were a nightmare for all of
us. I would do anything in my power to spare another family what we
have experienced."[61]
She and her son, Mrs. Ralph later recalled, "were saddened by the
news that two more veterans had been found who are also suffering from
bone-marrow cancer, but we were so happy to meet these two grand
fellows, Jack McDaniel and Harry Coppola. Knowing very well how this
illness affected my husband's strength and how this illness plays
tricks on human beings, I was amazed at their bravery. I was so
thankful to have them with us."[62]
Slowly the group walked across the mall area on the west side of the
Capitol dome, to the Rayburn House Office Building. Cosponsored by
{The Progressive} magazine and Colorado Congresswoman Patricia
Schroeder (D), the press conference took place in the ornate grandeur
of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee room. "Far
be it from me to bad-mouth my country, or the military. I still love
it like I did when I joined the Marines," said McDaniel. "I can't
understand in my hillbilly mind why I get a flat no. I want to know
why we receive no assistance from our Government. Why no help?"[63]
Virginia Ralph found that her journey to Washington for the press
conference in early June 1979 rekindled a flame of optimism. "For
two-and-a-half years previous to the Washington trip," she remarked
later that summer, "replies from our U.S. Government and the VA to all
of my correspondence left me with the feeling of someone who has had
his hands tied behind his back with his face pushed up against a brick
wall. The trip to Washington offered hope! My hands are unleashed
and the wall is beginning to crumble. In view of all we know, the
U.S. Government cannot shun its responsibilities much longer."[64]
But the reconciliation Virginia Ralph hoped for was not to be.
Until the summer of 1979 federal agencies had never faced any
widespread publicity raised about the U.S. veterans who went into the
postbomb wreckage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Washington press
conference gave unprecedented visibility to the issue, and some
federal officials began to devote more time and resources toward
responding.
In late July 1979 at the Pentagon the Associated Press interviewed
Defense Nuclear Agency Lieutenant Colonel Bax Mowery, and reported
that the agency "has been trying to identify the estimated 250,000
servicemen exposed to radiation in the A-bomb tests and the two bomb
blasts in Japan."[65] It was the first published report that the U.S.
Government was expressing any interest in learning more about the
American soldiers of Hiroshima and Nagasaki cleanup.
But such statements were not to be confused with a substantial
change in practices and attitudes. "These guys are getting old enough
so that they're just getting sick from being on the good old earth," a
November 1979 issue of {Newsweek} quoted a Defense Nuclear Agency
officer as saying about U.S. veterans of Hiroshima-Nagasaki cleanup.
"Somebody has convinced them to blame it on radiation."[66] At the
Veterans Administration and White House, officials responded to
questions from journalists with the refrain that there was no reason
to be concerned.
The intensifying media coverage included editorials in a number of
newspapers criticizing government handling of the issue. The San Jose
{Mercury} editors lamented the lack of forthright federal action;[67]
the {St Louis Post-Dispatch} went further--running a series of
editorials lambasting the government's conduct with increasing venom:
"Either the Veterans Administration has difficulty understanding
statistics or it is engaging in some callous stonewalling on the
deaths and disabilities suffered by servicemen who were sent into
Nagasaki and Hiroshima for cleanup operations. . . . Rather than
admit it was wrong, and possibly heighten public doubts about its
nuclear policies, the Government has chosen to dodge responsibility
and ignore the suffering."[68]
Under the headline "Old or Dead Before Their Time," the {Seattle
Post-Intelligencer} editorialized that "grim new evidence comes to us
no thanks to the U.S. Government, which, for a third of a century, has
swept aside, ignored and apparently suppressed information on the
long-lasting effects of radiation exposure. . . . One would have
thought that the Government would have kept records on the health of
these veterans. Such has not been the case. For the past 33 years,
the Government has asserted that radiation levels at Hiroshima and
Nagasaki were safe during the cleanup. This seems a shabby artifice."
Concluded the {Post-Intelligencer} editorial: "We believe the
Government now must take responsibility for the risks of the Nagasaki
and Hiroshima cleanup. The disability assistance that these veterans
could gain in the few years remaining to them is a small enough amount
to pay for three decades of misery and denial."[69]
On Capitol Hill, few members of Congress were willing to step
forward. When Junior Hodge, for instance, sought help from his
representative, Al Gore, Jr., the ex-Marine veteran of Nagasaki
bulldozer assignments got no help as he lay ailing in eastern
Tennessee. An aide to Congressman Gore noted that the Tennessee
Valley Authority's nuclear power plants carry enormous political clout
back home. "I know nuclear weapons fallout isn't exactly the same
thing," the aide told us, "but it's close enough to nuclear power that
we'd rather stay away from it publicly."[70]
A few members of the U.S. House of Representatives did speak out.
Among them the earliest was Patricia Schroeder. In addition to
appearing alongside Nagasaki cleanup veterans at press conferences,
Representative Schroeder fired off a strong letter to Veterans
Administration director Max Cleland on August 9, 1979.
Terming the VA's treatment of veterans who had cleaned up after the
wartime atomic bombings "unconscionable," Schroeder's message to the
VA top administrator was blunt: "I am shocked and appalled by your
lack of responsiveness to these servicemen who, without adequate
precautions or protections, unknowingly subjected themselves to high
levels of radiation and are now paying the fatal price." Schroeder
went on to suggest that the VA "initiate a comprehensive study"
probing the health of U.S. veterans of Hiroshima-Nagasaki cleanup,
along with "testing and medical examination of all surviving
servicemen, who officially or unofficially, were present at the blast
sites within one year after the bombing."[71]
"Now that the latency period for these bone and blood cancers and
diseases has expired, we can no longer excuse the Government's gross
miscalculation which has resulted in these disorders," she added. "We
cannot rectify the damage that has been done. We can, however, admit
our mistakes and try to make these terrible afflictions which Marines
have come to bear slightly less painful."[72]
VA director Max Cleland responded to Representative Schroeder two
and a half months later, in a letter dated October 29, 1979. "At the
outset," Cleland replied, "I should like to assure you that there is
no effort whatsoever on the part of the Veterans Administration or, so
far as I am aware, on the part of any other government agency to
obfuscate or withhold the truth about any untoward biological effects
of exposure to nuclear radiation."[73]
In Nagasaki, he contended, "one hour after the bomb burst, the
radiation present from the fallout was about 10 rads . . . By way of
comparison, an x-ray examination of one's gastrointestinal tract can
deliver 5 to 30 rads, depending upon the circumstances of the
examination. The 10 rads appearing one hour after the burst very
rapidly decreased to a fractional amount . . . Radiation levels at
Hiroshima declined at a similar rate."[74]
The facile comparison to external penetrating X rays did not take
into account an atom bomb's fission products, some of which inevitably
give off alpha and beta radiation for years or centuries after a
nuclear explosion. Even a tiny particle--lodging in lungs, bones,
muscles, or other vulnerable human tissue after being inhaled or
swallowed--would continue to irradiate from inside the body, with
potentially deadly consequences.
Cleland continued: "The Department of Defense advises that a
combined United States and Japanese team made a complete survey of the
fallout radiation levels at both Hiroshima and Nagasaki from October 3
to 7, 1945, about two months after the bombings. Radiation levels
were measuring up to 0.015 milliroentgen per hour from Hiroshima and 1
milliroentgen per hour for Nagasaki."[75]
It all boiled down to no reason for alarm, Cleland insisted. "I
again stress that we at the VA have no desire to 'cover-up' or
otherwise prejudice the good-faith claims of our veterans. We are
dealing, however, with a matter of ongoing scientific inquiry, and the
medical knowledge presently available simply does not support a
conclusion that malignancies or other diseases which have afflicted or
are afflicting veterans are causally related to their proximity to
Hiroshima or Nagasaki after the nuclear explosions. Your interest in
veterans' benefits is appreciated, and I hope I have allayed your
concern that we at the VA are in any way reluctant to address this
complex and controversial issue."[76]
A few months after expressing optimism that the government would
change its tune at last, Virginia Ralph sounded sadder but wiser.
"It's a great cover-up," she said. "They're afraid to admit anything,
because then people who are living near nuclear reactors would worry
that 30 years from now the same thing will happen."[77]
------
45. Lieutenant Colonel Bill McGee and Colonel D. W. McIndoe, U.S. DNA,
interviews, January 1979.
46. McGee interview.
47. Irving Kleinfeld, interview, January 1979.
48. Stratton Appleman, interview, January 1979.
49. {Charlotte Observer}, January 21, 1979.
50. Al Rayford, interview, February 1979.
51. Bob Drogin to authors, March 1979.
52. Robert Macomber, interviews, January 1979.
53. Ibid.
54. James McDaniel, interviews, March 1979.
55. Richard B. Dobrow, M D., to VA regional office in Seattle, February 22,
1979.
56. McDaniel interviews.
57. McDaniel's claim file, 75-1022, obtained from VA Seattle office.
58. Dr. Dobrow, interview, April 1979.
59. Death certificate of Harold Joseph Ralph, state of Illinois, August 18,
1978.
60. Authors were present at June 8, 1979, meeting at Commodore Hotel.
61. Virginia Ralph, interviews, March-July 1979.
62. Virginia Ralph, {Newsletter}, Committee for U.S. Veterans of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, summer 1979, p. 3
63. {Denver Post}, United Press International, June 9, 1979.
64. Ralph, {Newsletter}, Committee, p. 3.
65. {Los Angeles Times}, Associated Press, August 1, 1979.
66. {Newsweek}, November 26, 1979.
67. {Mercury} (San Jose), September 26, 1979 and May 6, 1980.
68. {St. Louis Post-Dispatch}, December 1, 1979.
69. {Seattle Post-Intelligencer}, June 17, 1979.
70. Aide to Congressman Al Gore, Jr., interview, September 1979.
71. Patricia Schroeder to Max Cleland, August 9, 1979.
72. Ibid.
73. Cleland to Schroeder, October 29, 1979.
74. Ibid.
75. Ibid.
76. Ibid.
77. {Newsweek}, November 26, 1979.
------
The Ordeal of Harry Coppola
While certain government agencies were digging in for a protracted
struggle, so were some of the victims. A group called the Committee
for U.S. Veterans of Hiroshima and Nagasaki formed to take up the
fight. Its membership included several hundred veterans and relatives
who believed their families' lives had been forever harmed by cleanup
participation in the two Japanese cities. One of the first activities
of the new organization came in August 1979, when Virginia Ralph and
Harry Coppola traveled to Japan on its behalf.
For Coppola--in the throes of an increasingly painful terminal
disease--the journey to Nagasaki was his first visit to that city in
nearly thirty-four years. Until recently there seemed to be no
particular reason to return. A Bostonian of Italian descent, a
patriotic Marine with official discharge papers listing combat in
battles at Iwo Jima and Bougainville, a bakery worker and then a union
house painter who saved a little money and moved to Florida--for three
decades Harry Coppola almost forgot having been sent into Nagasaki's
atomic blast center area in September 1945.
But in 1978 Coppola learned that he was dying of a cancer in his
marrow--multiple myeloma--the cause of unexplained pain and frailty of
his bones that had plagued him since 1974.[78] He did not have long
to live, according to Dr. James N. Harris, a West Palm Beach
specialist. Broward County medical examiner Dr. Abdullah Fatteh,
based in Fort Lauderdale, reviewed Coppola's records and concluded it
was "probable that Mr. Coppola's condition of multiple myeloma is
causally related to the atomic bomb radiation exposure in 1945."[79]
Coppola filed a Veterans Administration claim for service-connected
benefits for himself, his three sons, and his widow-to-be, based on a
connection between the Nagasaki duties and his terminal illness. As
in all such cases the VA's answer was an unequivocal {no}.
Later, after his predicament received national publicity, Defense
Nuclear Agency officers tried to undercut congressional concern by
telling people at Michigan Congressman Robert W. Davis's (R) office
that Harry Coppola had not been in Nagasaki in 1945.[80] But
Coppola's Marine Corps discharge papers list his military service as
including "Occupation of Japan--September 22, 1945, to October 6,
1945."[81] And an affidavit by Masuko Takaki, who was a young girl
living in Nagasaki in the fall of 1945, recollects Coppola's presence
as a patrol in the central A-bombed zone of the city at that time. "I
remember specifically," the affidavit declares, "because my father
invited him to our home several times for dinner, and I remember he
gave my father American cigarettes. I also recognized his pictures in
Japan's newspapers during his visit August 6, 1979, and made an effort
to have a reunion with him."[82]
Coppola was part of a squad of a dozen crack machine-gunner Marine
MPs arriving in Nagasaki shortly before the larger detachment of
Marines and Seabees. He would never forget becoming "nauseous as
hell" two weeks after getting to Nagasaki; he and another Marine with
the same symptoms in the MP squad were quickly removed from the city
and put on a Navy ship bound for the States. After a voyage during
which he lost large amounts of hair, Coppola was discharged two days
after arriving at Oceanside, California.[83] "They rushed us right
through," Coppola remembered. "Other guys there were waiting for
weeks to get discharged--they asked me, 'Who do you know, a
congressman?'" Coppola's impression was that "they wanted to get rid
of me fast."[84]
It was to prove far more arduous to return to Japan in 1979 than it
had been to arrive the first time.
"I'm going to Japan because the truth must be told," Coppola said in
a written statement. "I've already gone to Washington, D.C., and the
Veterans Administration doesn't want to help me. I'm feeling very
bitter that my own government, that i fought for proudly, refuses to
admit that the Nagasaki bomb is killing me. After what I've learned,
what I've been going through, I'm against all this nuclear crap."[85]
A few days later, with Coppola beginning to tour Japan, the
Associated Press reported his intention to "seek financial aid in
Japan to pay his medical costs." AP quoted Coppola as saying: "I
know it's a lousy thing to do--to ask the country where we dropped the
bomb, but the United States has turned a deaf ear." Owing to expenses
of his bone-marrow cancer, Coppola said, "I've blown my life savings,
about $29,000, and I'm still in debt."[86]
Ostensibly a beneficiary of the nuclear bombings, at the age of
fifty-nine Coppola had become living--and dying--symbolic evidence
refuting the illusion that the effects of an atomic weapon can be
confined to its intended victims.
"I really didn't know how they were going to accept me. I knew we
were going to go on a speaking tour and all that, but the rest of it I
couldn't anticipate. I didn't know what the hell to expect."[87]
Emotion ran high, as the Japanese hosts and American visitors saw in
each other common anguish. Coppola was besieged by scores of
journalists; at times he was accompanied by Masuko Takaki, now a
middle-aged woman who succeeded in her efforts to "have a reunion"
with the former Marine she remembered from those dinner-table visits.
When Coppola reached Nagasaki for ceremonies on the thirty-fourth
anniversary of the atomic bombing of that city, a huge amphitheater
holding eighteen thousand people awaited his address. "When I got
through with the speech, they gave me an applause until I left the
arena. And every five or six feet I would give them a bow. And they
all stood up. It was something; it was deafening, the roar that they
gave me. Because I told them, in that speech, that Truman was livin'
in hell, I told them that he shouldn't've dropped the bomb there. He
didn't drop it on military targets, he dropped it right in the middle
of two cities, with women and children."[88]
Sitting in the living room of his modest home outside of West Palm
Beach, expecting his death would not be much longer in coming,
memories of his second trip to Japan were bittersweet for Coppola.
"They were very good to me. They offered me free medical service,
they offered me everything there, live there free. But I figured what
the hell, I don't want to die in Japan, I'd have to leave my family,
go there, I'm not getting {cured} on it." His wife, Anna, leaned over
the armchair and patted his shoulder. "Multiple myeloma means {many},
I'm loaded with it, they're not going to {cure} me. And I was told
they could never really arrest it; they were trying to control it,
but it'll never be arrested. But if I'm going to {die}, I says, I
want to die {home}--I'm not going to die over there. That's the only
reason why I didn't take 'em up on it. But they can't understand why
the United States Government won't help me on this."[89]
Travel became still more difficult for Coppola, subject to frequent,
torturous attacks. "Sometimes I feel like I'm in hell," he said,
describing the pain searing his bones that all too often left him
feeling "like someone cut your leg off." People told him they found
it hard to believe, from looking at him, that he was so close to
death. "An apple can look shiny, beautiful on the outside. But
inside, it's rotten."[90]
Despite the increasing agony Coppola was eager to participate in
activities planned for Washington, D.C., in late September.
Over the summer several dozen American veterans had signed a
petition, addressed to President Jimmy Carter and Max Cleland,
requesting fundamental changes in VA policies. "Some of the U.S.
servicemen who were with us in Nagasaki cannot sign this petition,
because they are dead--from premature heart attacks, blood disorders,
bone marrow cancer or other ailments," the document said. "As time
passed, it has become clear that our illnesses, and those of our
buddies, were connected to the time we spent in the atomic blast
center of Nagasaki in the fall of 1945, as we functioned under orders
there."[91]
On Sunday, September 23, 1979--exactly thirty-four years after the
Marine occupation troops entered Nagasaki's harbor--Harry Coppola,
Virginia Ralph, and several other veterans and widows of Nagasaki
cleanup walked through Lafayette Park to the northwest gate of the
White House. Coppola, dressed in a suit and tie, and wearing a
Veterans of Foreign Wars hat in the bright sunshine, handed a pile of
signed petitions to William Lawson, executive director of the White
House Federal Veterans Coordinating Committee.
The next morning, thirty-four years to the day after U.S. Marines
and Seabees first awoke to begin their cleanup assignments in Japan,
VA administrators and a White House aide sat down to discuss the
aftermath of those duties with Nagasaki veterans and relatives from
New York, North Carolina, Florida, Illinois, and California. There
was appreciable tension in the national VA headquarters office suite.
What followed were three hours of dialogue and often heated debate.
"We have very little choice but to accept the evidence given to us
by the Defense Department as authoritative," John Wishniewski, deputy
director of the VA Compensation and Pension Service, informed the
delegation. "We have been assured by the Defense Department that the
levels of exposure at Nagasaki and Hiroshima were very minimal."[92]
"I have got multiple myeloma, and you say to send new evidence in,"
Harry Coppola retorted. "Well, I have sent new evidence, medical
evidence, by some of the biggest doctors in the country . . ."[93]
Coppola added that while the VA's director "is living high off the
hog, big salary, I am looking for--I am ready to eat dog food! I am
living on Social Security! And now I submitted that evidence, now you
say `Go back to your military records.' Well I have asked for my
military records, and half the stuff isn't in there. I went to a
Japanese [language] school in Guadalcanal to learn how to speak
Japanese, it is not in my record. I got wounded with shrapnel in the
back on Bougainville, it is not in my record. I got wounded in the
leg at Iwo Jima--it is not in my record. I am not even on the record
that I was patrolling in Nagasaki! What records are you talking
about? I applied for disability on this, got a form letter that says
`It is not in your military records.' But I have cancer . . . "[94]
For Margaret E. Powers, widow of a Nagasaki cleanup veteran, the
trip to Washington from her home in Castleton-on-Hudson, New York, was
propelled by the same kind of long-standing frustrations. Her
husband, ex-Marine William S. Powers, had died at the age of forty-
eight, from gastrointestinal bleeding due to cancer, in 1965. Soft-
spoken, her pent-up bitterness spilled out after a VA administrator
offered assurances that the agency was interested in learning all it
could about such veterans.
"Do they know the names of these Marines?" Mrs. Powers asked,
turning to other visitors in the VA suite. "They never kept track of
who was in there or for how long, the VA, did they? I mean, how do
they know where to locate these men? Maybe they don't even know that
this is going on . . . I only found this out myself, and I have been a
widow for fourteen years, and my husband was in there on the day that
they went, September 23, and he was there [in Nagasaki] for three
months before they sent him to Sasebo, and they were cleaning up the
area with bulldozers and whatnot, and still discovering bodies under
the rubble, and getting sick just from the smell of the place. Now
they weren't too concerned about it then, about sending these boys in
there."[95]
Virginia Ralph added that the VA was refusing to accept
responsibility for disabilities that cropped up decades after military
service ended. "If a man is shot in the leg, or shot in the head, or
loses an arm in service, immediately he is taken care of, because
there is visual evidence. But when a man is exposed to radiation
which is a silent invader, there is no way to detect that he has
radiation illness. He may be lethargic; my husband had dizzy spells,
the doctor said, `It is something you must learn to live with.'
"But when his rib cage deteriorated, when the bones fell apart, when
he was in his final stages, that is when the doctors at the VA
hospital, every doctor that came in to take his history, the first
question was, `Have you ever worked in radiation?'" Ralph, a farmer,
never had--except in Nagasaki. "It sounded to me as though the VA
thought that my husband's illness struck overnight. This is false. I
don't think it is handled individually, because I have seen several
denial letters, and they have the same paragraph: `Your husband
received insignificant radiation.' `Your husband received slight
radiation.' In the case of plutonium, what is insignificant
radiation? . . . What is slight radiation?"[96]
Back home in Florida, Coppola spoke with a steady stream of
interviewers. "I can accept dying, we're not here for good," he told
a {Tampa Tribune} reporter. "But I cannot accept the Government
giving me a screwing."[97]
As 1979 drew to a close, the bone-marrow cancer grew still more
excruciating. In anguish over her husband's worsening condition, Anna
Coppola confided: "I don't know how a person can stand so much
pain."[98]
Shortly before Christmas {The Miami Herald} quoted Coppola in a
front-page article: "Does the Government want me dead? They hope I
die tomorrow. Then my case is closed, and they've gotten rid of one
royal pain."[99] The same month, Howard Rosenberg, a staff associate
of columnist Jack Anderson, called the Defense Department for reaction
to the national publicity often spearheaded by Coppola's flamboyant
accusations and unswerving persistence. Chatting with an officer at
the Defense Nuclear Agency, Rosenberg asked whether the publicized
charges were angering the nuclear military brass. Replied the
Pentagon official: "We don't get mad, we get even."[100]
In the spring of 1980 Coppola's appeal to the Veterans
Administration was denied. The VA justified its decision by declaring
that "service medical records do not reveal treatment for any
condition which could be considered a result of radiation exposure and
do not show any evidence of any early manifestation of multiple
myeloma. The condition is not shown to have become manifest to a
degree of at least 10 percent within one year of the veteran's release
from active military service."[101]
As the {Palm Beach Post} noted in an editorial, "Coppola was
outraged by this rationale, and rightly so."[102] The lag time
between radiation exposure and multiple myeloma is known to run a
quarter of a century or longer. Coppola responded, "I'm a very bitter
man against the government. When my country needed me in Guadalcanal
I was there. On Bougainville I was there. On Guam I was there. I
was there in Iwo Jima; I gave machine-gun coverage while they put the
flag up on Mount Suribachi."[103]
Out of his original Marine battalion of one thousand men, he
recalled, only a dozen or so had survived the war. He had felt
blessed to be among them. But American-made radioactivity seemed
about to succeed where Japanese troops had failed--and the Veterans
Administration's refusals felt like salt in the festering radiation
wounds.
Meanwhile, protests came from other quarters. Delegates to the 1979
national convention of the International Woodworkers of America
approved a resolution observing that "the U.S. Government has failed
to take responsibility for aiding veterans and their families--
suffering from severe illnesses and financial hardships as a result of
exposure to residual radiation from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki." The labor union's resolution proclaimed that "we
support the rights of these veterans and their widows to receive
compensation from the Veterans Administration for service-connected
disability."[104] A few months later the White House received a
petition signed by dozens of prominent Japanese scientists and civic
leaders, urging aid for Coppola and other U.S. veterans who had been
sent into Hiroshima and Nagasaki in autumn 1945.[105]
During the spring of 1980 Harry Coppola was in hospitals much of the
time. "In the last week I almost died two times, and I know time is
running short," he said, speaking into a tape recorder, his voice
still strong though audibly short of breath. "No human should suffer
the pains of hell like we're suffering."[106]
By the time Harry Coppola died from multiple myeloma bone-marrow
cancer on June 16, 1980--three months short of his sixtieth birthday-
-he was one of five ex-Marines whose multiple myeloma had been
publicly linked to their presence in the core atomic blast area of
Nagasaki in late September 1945.
------
78. Diagnosis summary by James N. Harris, M.D., August 16, 1978.
79. Abdullah Fatteh, M.D., Ph.D., Office of District Medical Examiner, Fort
Lauderdale, to John F. Romano, Esq., West Palm Beach, June 17, 1979.
80. Aides to Congressman Robert Davis, interviews, June 1980.
81. Discharge statement for Harry A. Coppola, signed by commanding officer
E. W. Autry, Captain, U.S.M.C.R.
82. Affidavit by Masuko Takaki (1512-5 Waifu, Kikuchi City, Kumanoto-ken,
Japan), September 1, 1979; available from Committee for U.S. Veterans
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
83. The U.S.M.C. honorable discharge certificate for Coppola is dated
November 9, 1945.
84. Harry A. Coppola, interviews, March 1979 to April 1980.
85. Press release by Coppola and Committee for U.S. Veterans of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, July 26, 1979. Working to get his passport in time to
participate in ceremonies marking the thirty-fourth anniversaries of the
atomic bombings, Coppola called his congressional representative, Daniel
Mica. Coppola told us that Mica advised him to be careful not to say
anything against the U.S. Government while abroad; to do so, Coppola
recounted Mica's telling him, might be considered a violation of federal
statutes.
86. {Los Angeles Times}, Associated Press, August 1, 1979.
87. Coppola, interview, March 1980.
88. Ibid
89. Ibid.
90. Coppola, interview, September 1979.
91. Petition presented to White House on September 23, 1979, and to VA
national headquarters September 24, 1979; available from Committee for
U.S. Veterans of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
92. Transcription of tape-recorded meeting, September 24, 1979.
93. Ibid.
94. Ibid.
95. Ibid.
96. Ibid.
97. {Tampa Tribune}, November 28, 1979.
98. Anna Coppola, interview, December 1979.
99. {Miami Herald}, December 7, 1979.
100. Howard Rosenberg, interview, February 1980.
101. "Statement of the Case--In the Appeal of Harry A. Coppola," VA regional
office, St. Petersburg, March 28, 1980.
102. {Palm Beach} (Fla.) {Post}, April 21, 1980.
103. Coppola, interview, April 1980.
104. International Woodworkers of America, 1979 Resolution No. 6; available
from IWA national headquarters, Portland, Oregon.
105. Petition to White House by Japanese scientists; available from
Committee for U.S. Veterans of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
106. Coppola to authors, tape-recorded message, April 1980.
------
A Toll in Blood
Alvin N. Lasky, a St. Louis business executive, was "doing mostly
cleanup and guard duty" in Weapons Company, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd
Marine Division--"billeted on the industrial site of the harbor"
immediately next to the core blast site in Nagasaki.[107] Lasky was
diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 1974, and was unusually successful
in continuing to live with the usually terminal illness.[108]
Richard W. Bonebrake, a member of B Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd
Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, was ordered to patrol in the center of
Nagasaki's nuclear-blasted area. In October 1977, living in
Williamsport, Indiana, where he worked as a bank clerk, Bonebrake
learned he had multiple myeloma, and began the long struggle with
chemotherapy.[109]
George Proctor, also a 2nd Division Marine sent into Nagasaki's
central area for cleanup, was forced to quit his job as a construction
worker, suffering through several years of multiple myeloma before
dying from the disease in October 1979. His widow, Agnes Proctor,
living in Elwell, Michigan, recalled her husband's accounts of
experiencing severe nausea and aching joints even while still in Japan
during the occupation.[110] His claims to the VA for compensation
were rejected.
Multiple myeloma was not confined to the five former Marines we
located. Anthony Thomas Sirani, an Army radio operator attached to
the 2nd Marine Division, arrived at Nagasaki's central zone on
September 23.[111] At age fifty-five, in December 1979, Sirani died
from multiple myeloma at Nassau Hospital in New York.[112] The
disease also emerged among U.S. naval personnel accompanying the
Marines assigned to begin occupation cleanup duties in Nagasaki, and
among Army veterans engaged in similar cleanup tasks in Hiroshima
starting the second week of October 1945.
"How much longer can the Government ignore such statistics as 10
times the national average for such a rare disease?" demanded
Congressman Robert Davis. A constituent of Davis's--Napoleon Micheau
of Escanaba, Michigan--contracted multiple myeloma three decades after
Army cleanup chores in Hiroshima.[113] His plight prompted Davis to
issue a statement, in spring 1980, decrying "the tragedy of the
Defense Department's refusal to cooperate in locating the military
personnel involved in the cleanup operations in Hiroshima and
Nagasak."[114]
The Department of Defense, however, was doing no more than
stonewalling. In a letter sent to Illinois Representative Thomas
Corcoran (R) on March 18, 1980, Defense Nuclear Agency director Vice
Admiral R. R. Monroe contended that "medical science has, to date,
identified only a `borderline' relationship between exposure to
radiation and the onset of multiple myeloma."[115]
Later, in a report dated August 6, 1980, DNA officials replayed the
same theme: "Medical science believes multiple myeloma has a
borderline relationship with exposure to ionizing radiation. That is,
there are some indications that exposure to radiation may increase the
risk of this disease, but science cannot yet be sure."[116]
Amid recent research scrupulously ignored by the Pentagon was a
survey by the Government Accounting Office. Coordinated by Boston
blood specialist Dr. Thomas Najarian and made public May 31, 1979, it
indicated that veterans who were exposed to atomic bomb testing may
have become far more susceptible to multiple myeloma as a result.[117]
In releasing the survey results, Dr. Najarian noted that the disease
has an incubation period of twenty-five to thirty years[118]--a time
span precisely corresponding to the experiences of Nagasaki cleanup
Marines Coppola, Ralph, Lasky, Bonebrake, and Proctor.
Meanwhile the Hiroshima-based Radiation Effects Research Foundation
was reporting that Japanese survivors of the atomic bombings faced a
risk of multiple myeloma 4.7 times higher than normal. It had taken
at least twenty years for the excessive multiple myelomas to
emerge.[119]
And, in 1981, the {New England Journal of Medicine} published a
study linking radiation to increased risk of multiple myeloma.
University of Oxford researcher Jack Cuzick pinpointed "a clear excess
of myeloma among persons exposed to radiation." The British scientist
had compiled information available from two decades of research around
the world.[120]
In addition to multiple myeloma many other rare bone-marrow diseases
plagued the Nagasaki veterans. When doctors found that former Marine
Lyle Wohlfeil's bone marrow was being destroyed by myelofibrosis,
"they kept asking him if he was ever connected with radiation,"
recalled his widow, Marilyn Morris, who settled in LaGrange, Illinois,
after remarrying. Wohlfeil had been in the autumn 1945 Nagasaki
cleanup, and went on to become a realtor. He succumbed to
myelofibrosis, a severe scarring of the bone marrow, in 1968; he was
fifty-four. Having heard VA officials discount the possibility that
Nagasaki's residual radiation could have been harmful, neither
Wohlfeil nor his widow filed with the VA for service-connected
benefits.[121]
VA national headquarters records show that a claim was filed in
March 1968 on behalf of another veteran who died from myelofibrosis--
and who had arrived at the Nagasaki atomic blast center on September
23, 1945, serving there five weeks. Nagasaki-based VA claims also
document deaths from such radiation-connected illnesses as Hodgkin's
disease, granulocytic leukemia, and oat-cell carcinoma of the
lung.[122]
In late 1979 Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder acquired photocopied
summaries of sixty-four Veterans Administration claims filed by
veterans and widows contending residual radiation had caused severe
illnesses among the veterans of Nagasaki and Hiroshima cleanup. We
obtained copies of the documents, which made staggering reading.
There were a dozen cases of leukemia, plus various forms of organ
cancers and several instances each of blood-related diseases like
myelofibrosis, Hodgkin's disease, and bone-marrow cancer. A number of
claimants mentioned chronic bizarre skin afflictions. All the claims
had been submitted before any national publicity on U.S. veterans of
Hiroshima-Nagasaki cleanup. Quietly the VA had been systematically
rejecting all of them.[123]
There were good reasons to believe that the sixty-four claims
acknowledged by VA headquarters represented a tip of the iceberg of
claims filed by Hiroshima and Nagasaki cleanup veterans. The two
dozen that VA rating-policy staff chief Robert C. Macomber described
to us in January 1979 included a number that never turned up in the
stack of claims that VA administrator Max Cleland later provided to
Representative Schroeder. And some of the claims submitted in the
late 1970s were not included in that stack of documents sent along to
the congressional office.
{Chicago Sun-Times} journalist Claudia Ricci reported in December
1979 that "of 13 veterans of Nagasaki and Hiroshima whose cases have
surfaced here, 10 have died, nine of them from cancer."[124] A
Chicago widow, Margaret Ryan, recounted a discussion with physicians
who discovered her husband, James--a Navy veteran who had been in
Nagasaki after the atomic bombing--was suffering from myeloblastic
leukemia: "At the time, the doctors asked if he was ever in Japan.
We were in shock. `Yeah, I was there,' he said. `Well, you have the
same kind of leukemia the Japanese had.'"[125] Ryan's application for
VA benefits was rejected in the spring of 1977, a year before his
death.
William Shufflebarger was twenty-two years old while a Marine
stationed in Nagasaki at the end of September 1945--"just a few blocks
from the devastated area of the city," as he described the location.
Living in Oak Lawn, Illinois, thirty-five years later he was battling
Hodgkin's disease, and cancer of the lymph nodes.[126]
Severe breathing problems have been frequently cited by America's
veterans of assignments to clean up after atomic warfare. Sam Scione,
of Warwick, Rhode Island, a Marine veteran of Nagasaki cleanup, was
the subject of an article published in the Disabled American Veterans'
magazine in March 1980. As a result of the article Scione heard from
180 veterans involved in the occupation of Hiroshima or Nagasaki;
nearly half--eighty-three--reported severe respiratory maladies.[127]
------
107. Alvin Lasky to authors, August 20, 1979.
108. Diagnosis summary by Virgil Loeb, Jr., M.D., St. Louis, January 8, 1979.
109. Richard Bonebrake, interview, May 1980; also, {Chicago Sunday
Sun-Times}, May 25, 1980.
110. Agnes Proctor, interview, May 1980; also, {Chicago Sunday Sun-Times},
May 25, 1980.
111. Marie Sirani (widow of A. T. Sirani) to Virginia Ralph, February 6,
1981.
112. Death certificate of Anthony Thomas Sirani, New York State Department
of Health, December 22, 1979.
113. Diagnosis summary by Robert E. Ryde, M.D., Escanaba, Michigan, July 24,
1979. Ilene and Napoleon Micheau to authors, June 28, 1979.
114. Press release, Committee for U.S. Veterans of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
May 18, 1980.
115. R. R. Monroe to Congressman Thomas Corcoran, March 18, 1980.
116. {Hiroshima and Nagasaki Occupation Forces}.
117. {The Oregonian}, Associated Press, June 1, 1979. See also, letter by
Thomas Najarian, M.D., and Benjamin Castleman, M D., {New England
Journal of Medicine}, May 31, 1979, p. 1278.
118. Ibid.
119. M. Ichimaru, et al., {Multiple Myeloma Among Atomic Bomb Survivors,
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 1950-1976}, Technical Report No 9-79
(Hiroshima: Radiation Effects Research Foundation, 1979).
120. Jack Cuzick, Ph.D., "Radiation-Induced Myelomatosis," {New England
Journal of Medicine}, January 22, 1981, pp. 204-210.
121. Marilyn Morris, interview, March 1979.
122. Robert Macomber, interviews, January and February 1979. Regarding
radiation and lung cancer tissue, see Archer et al., "Frequency of
Different Histological Types of Bronchogenic Carcinoma as Related to
Radiation," {Cancer}, Vol. 34, no. 6, 1974, pp. 2056-2060.
123. VA claim files obtained from Schroeder's office, November 1979.
124. {Chicago Sunday Sun-Times}, December 23, 1979.
125. Ibid.
126. William Shufflebarger to authors, April 30, 1979.
127. Log of informational phone calls and correspondence compiled by Dora
and Sam Scione.
------
A Continuing Dispute
For the most part federal officials responded to the emerging
controversy as they always had--by denying the danger of the radiation
exposure. A December 1979 White House letter to veterans and widows
maintained that maximum doses "received by any U.S. serviceman in
either city, in an absolute {worst case}, is less than one rem. The
estimate assumes the man arrived with the first unit in September
1945, remained until the last unit left in July 1946, and worked eight
hours a day, seven days a week, for nine and a half months, in the
highest-intensity portion of the very small fallout field (a few
hundred meters in diameter). Since, in the actual situation, no one
approximated this worst-case pattern, DNA believes the maximum dose
any individual received was markedly less than one rem." The letter
added that this dose was far below that allowed for radiation workers,
and lower than common medical X rays.[128]
By the middle of 1980 the Department of the Navy was sending out a
new batch of letters designed to soothe veterans of Hiroshima or
Nagasaki who had contacted a wide range of federal agencies with their
concerns. "The Department of Defense and the U.S. Government continue
to be deeply interested in the welfare of veterans and determined to
insure that issues such as these are fully investigated, with wide
dissemination of the results," Navy Captain J. R. Buckley wrote.
Furthermore, Captain Buckley informed veterans receiving his letter,
"It is reassuring to note that the likelihood of exposure to any
radiation was quite low, that there was no possibility of any
occupation force member having received a significant dose, and there
is no cause whatsoever for concern over an increased risk of adverse
health effects."[129]
The Defense Nuclear Agency prepared a lengthy "fact sheet" titled
{Hiroshima and Nagasaki Occupation Forces}, releasing it to the media
on August 11, 1980. The thirty-page Pentagon report did not stray
from any previous positions. "The maximum radiation dose any member
of the U.S. occupation forces in Japan could have received--
considering his external dose, his inhaled dose, and his ingested
dose--was less than one rem. . . . the health risk from a dose such
as this is negligible--so small statistically that it cannot be
expressed in meaningful terms."[130]
The hot-off-the-press Defense Department document clearly impressed
the Associated Press reporter on the Pentagon beat, Fred S. Hoffman,
who promptly turned the DNA "Public Affairs Office" handout into
article form[131] without seeking any contrary points of view.[132]
While conceding that "unquestionably there would have been occasions
during the Nagasaki occupation on which patrols or other groups
entered the areas of residual contamination to carry out specific
missions,"[133] the Pentagon report stated that the troops closest to
ground zero generally remained out of the blast center area.[134]
Many Nagasaki cleanup veterans and widows found the depiction
infuriating.
Virginia Ralph responded by pointing out that "no mention is made of
the school building where Lyman Quigley was quartered, nor the
bombed-out waterfront hotel where Jack McDaniel stayed nor the
bombed-out warehouse where Joe [Ralph] was billeted."[135]
The Defense Department's description of the Marines as aloof from
cleanup activities in the ground zero area did not jibe with
remembrances of the ex-Marines themselves. Nor was it consistent with
the results of a painstaking search of U.S. military archives, in 1979
and 1980, by a Hollywood-based independent documentary filmmaker,
Trell W. Yocum.
Sifting through scene-by-scene descriptive logs accompanying
thirty-two reels of footage lodged in the U.S. Marine Corps Histories
Division, Yocum cross-referenced the information with interviews of
ex-Marines who participated in the Nagasaki occupation. Yocum
confirmed that a few companies of U.S. Marines totaling several
hundred of the men who arrived in Nagasaki on September 23, 1945, were
billeted in the immediate area of the atomic blast hypocenter--in
direct contradiction to the claims made by the Defense Nuclear Agency
thirty-five years afterward.[136]
The Pentagon's retrospective report, complete with tidy hand-drawn
maps, portrayed the 2nd Marine Division occupation troops closest to
the hypocenter as members of the 2nd and 6th Regiments billeting at
Kamigo Barracks seventy-five hundred yards south of the hypocenter,
and at Oura Barracks five thousand yards southwest of the
hypocenter.[137]
But by matching up official maps, Marine Corps archival footage
records, and independently conducted interviews, Yocum confirmed that
at least three Marine companies from those regiments were actually
billeted within a mile of the hypocenter. The partially destroyed
schoolhouse occupied by Lyman Quigley and other Marines in the 2nd
Pioneer Battalion's Company C "engineers" unit was approximately one
thousand yards from the atomic blast's ground zero, according to
Yocum's research for his film {The Other Victims of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.}[138] (In a scientific consultant's report distributed in
1981, DNA quietly acknowledged the 2nd Pioneer Battalion's constant
involvement in hypocenter-zone cleanup, and noted the battalion was
used "to rehabilitate two athletic fields in the `bombed' area of the
city.")[139]
Throughout, the well-publicized 1980 "fact sheet" from the Pentagon
strove to assert that scientific research had found insignificant
levels of residual radiation at Nagasaki and Hiroshima.[140] Thus,
the official story went, troops were ordered into an area where no
threat to health existed.
But four months before the DNA released its report, {The Washington
Post} had unearthed a declassified survey[141] from the National
Archives on residual radiation levels in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that
had been completed in 1946. In an article published April 13, 1980,
the {Post} stated, "The once-secret reports are bound to increase the
controversy that has developed over whether U.S. troops sent to
Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945 absorbed enough radiation to cause
cancers that appeared after 20 years or more." The {Post} noted that
two teams of U.S. Government researchers, surveying the outskirts of
Nagasaki two months after the atomic bombing, found radiation "that
was twice the level now considered safe for nuclear workers and over
10 times the radiation safety standard for the general
population."[142]
Left unacknowledged were the lethal qualities of minute alpha
particles capable of lodging in human bone marrow, lungs, and other
organs. The Defense Nuclear Agency preferred to focus attention on
gamma--external--radiation doses left in the wake of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki nuclear attacks, while parenthetically claiming that
plutonium and other forms of alpha-particle radiation were virtually
nonexistent. It was not a bad assumption--if those veterans hadn't
been breathing.
"The U.S. Defense Nuclear Agency estimate of the radiation dose
received by these Marines is not accurate," concluded Dr. Ikuro Anzai,
a Tokyo University professor and secretary general of the ten-
thousand-member Japanese Scientists Association, who conducted a
detailed study of the issue. Anzai was concerned with alpha-
radioactivity intake: "Though, by my calculations, the external
exposure would have been relatively small, the internal radiation dose
received by the bone marrow of these men could have been exceedingly
high. This was due to plutonium deposited in the water and soil of
Nagasaki."[143]
Dramatic substantiation of that view came on October 10, 1980, at a
medical symposium held in Tokyo. Not only was plutonium released at
the time of the bombing; it is still there.
"Thirty-five years after the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, large
amounts of deadly plutonium still lie buried under the city, a
professor of medicine says," United Press International reported.
"Professor Shunzo Okajima, a specialist in the effects of the atomic
bombings in Japan, told a radiotherapeutics conference . . . that
unusually large amounts of the radioactive substance were detected 3
kilometers (1.9 miles) east of the blast's center in the city's
Nishiyama district."[144]
"Radioactivity levels in the Nishiyama district were far higher than
I had expected," said Professor Okajima, who had just completed a
study of radioactivity in Nagasaki's soil. "I don't expect immediate
effects on human beings," he added.[145]
But, UPI recounted, Okajima "cautioned that extreme care must be
taken with plutonium, which is believed to cause lung cancer. . . .
The professor said he was alarmed because 76 percent of the plutonium
was concentrated within 10 centimeters (4 inches) of the
surface."[146]
All but two paragraphs of the nine-thousand-word Defense Nuclear
Agency report issued August 6, 1980, skirted the specific health
problems among United States veterans of Japan atomic bomb cleanup.
As had been government policy before, the DNA report--dated precisely
thirty-five years after the day in history when the atomic age was
introduced to the world--still espoused the U.S. Government's
theoretical conclusion that no appreciable health risks were involved.
The report's few sentences commenting on actual subsequent health
ills among Nagasaki cleanup Marines illustrate how far down the road
of misinformation the Pentagon had gone.
"One specific health risk deserves mention because it has received
some recent publicity. This concerns a type of bone marrow cancer
known as `multiple myeloma.'" Conceding that "four veterans of the
Nagasaki occupation have been diagnosed as having multiple myeloma,"
the report claimed, "This does not appear to represent an abnormal
incidence of this disease. The following statistics from the National
Cancer Institute are pertinent. If you start with 10,000 males age
25, in 1945 (which approximates the Nagasaki Marines); then today, in
1980, about {7.7} deaths from multiple myeloma should have already
occurred, based on normal statistics." The report concluded, then,
that "the four multiple myeloma cases that are known are less than the
number that would have been expected for a normal, non-radiation-
exposed group of this age and size."[147]
In those few sentences the Pentagon had thoroughly distorted the
situation. Use of the ten thousand Marines figure was misleading in
the extreme, grossly inflating the statistical "data base" against
which the multiple myeloma cases would be compared. By the Defense
Department's own account the vast majority of those ten thousand
Marine occupation troops remained several miles from ground zero in
Nagasaki. But the five--not four--cases of multiple myeloma were all
among the approximately one thousand Marines billeted in the immediate
central area, within a mile of the hypocenter in late September 1945.
In effect the Pentagon's DNA report was multiplying the
epidemiological data base ten-fold by including the Marines stationed
at the 6th Regiment's Oura Barracks three miles to the southwest and
the 2nd Regiment's Kamigo Barracks more than four miles to the south
of the hypocenter.
With the correct data base of one thousand, according to medical
incidence tables cited by all sources in the dispute, the occurrence
of multiple myeloma among the five Marine veterans was between 6.5 and
10 times higher than normal. And for all we know, Harry Coppola,
Harold Joseph Ralph, Alvin Lasky, Richard Bonebrake, and George
Proctor were not the only ones among the Marines at the blast core
area that first occupation week who later developed multiple myeloma.
The five of them represented the minimum, not the maximum of actual
incidences of the rare bone-marrow disease.
Federal officials have refused to make detailed records available
for systematic research on the cleanup veterans. Thanks to government
intransigence, the full dimensions of the health toll probably will
never be known.
U.S. servicemen sent into Nagasaki and Hiroshima amid residual
radiation were the first Americans to confront the specter of
invisible radiation from atomic weaponry. They were by no means the
last. After 1945 nuclear bomb explosions proliferated--and so did
their victims, in uniform and out.
------
128. Ellen Goldstein to Committee for U.S. Veterans of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, December 18, 1979.
129. Captain J. R. Buckley, USN, to Maurice E. Wilson, Portland, Oregon,
October 22, 1980.
130. {Hiroshima and Nagasaki Occupation Forces}, pp. 25, 29-30.
131. {San Francisco Chronicle}, Associated Press, August 12, 1980.
132. Fred Hoffman, interview, August 1980.
133. {Hiroshima and Nagasaki Occupation Forces}, p. 22.
134. Ibid., p. 21.
135. Virginia Ralph, interview, August 1980.
136. Trell Yocum interviews and correspondence (7471 Melrose Ave.,
Hollywood, CA 90028), December 1979 to February 1981.
137. {Hiroshima and Nagasaki Occupation Forces}, pp. 16, 21.
138. Documents were obtained by Yocum from Motion Picture Film Video Tape
Depository, Quantico, Virginia, aided by Support Branch, History and
Museums Division.
139. {Radiation Dose Reconstruction}, p. 23.
140. {Hiroshima and Nagasaki Occupation Forces}, pp. 25, 29-30.
141. Naval Medical Research Institute, {Measurement of the Residual
Radiation Intensity at the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Sites},
NMRI-160A (Bethesda: National Naval Medical Center, 1946).
142. {Washington Post}, April 13, 1980.
143. Trell Yocum interviewed Dr. Ikuro Anzai in March 1980.
144. United Press International, dateline Tokyo, October 10, 1980.
145. Ibid.
146. Ibid.
147. {Hiroshima and Nagasaki Occupation Forces}, p 28.
------
[part 3 of 18]
2
300,000 GIs Under the Mushroom Clouds
Dr. David Bradley sat among colleagues aboard a U.S. Navy ship docked
just off the main island of the Bikini atolls in the midst of the
Pacific Ocean, about two thousand miles southwest of Hawaii. Bradley,
a young Army doctor, was one of a score of assembled physicians in
training to be radiation monitors for the first peacetime atomic
detonations.[1] He listened attentively as Colonel Stafford Warren,
head of the Radiological Safety Section, explained the scenario set
for seventeen days later, on July 1, 1946.
An atomic bomb--the same size as the weapon that exploded over
Nagasaki--was scheduled to detonate at Bikini. In more ways than one
the U.S. military high command and its civilian counterparts were
testing the waters with this "Operation Crossroads"--the name given to
the 1946 Bikini test series. There was very little question that the
two plutonium bombs ready for detonation that July would work; the
purpose of Operation Crossroads was to evaluate impacts of existing
nuclear weapons rather than to experiment with any new designs.[2]
The psychological aspects of atomic detonations--among direct
participants as well as the general public--were being carefully
considered. It was no accident that journalists from around the
world, photographers, and newsreel crews were solicitously encouraged
to observe Operation Crossroads in all its breathtaking, awe-inspiring
atomic glory. But the atomic test supervisors were able to
meticulously control the stories those journalists turned in. All
information about the blasts--including the quantity and significance
of radioactive fallout affecting plants, animals, and humans--was most
definitely the sole province of official sources.
To be stressed to the world in the summer of 1946 was the theme of
fantastic power of nuclear weaponry, held only by the United States--a
nation capable of controlling nuclear explosions to protect its own
citizens and allies while inflicting enormous and selective damage on
adversaries. The leadoff test, appropriately enough, was code-named
Able.
The first lectures that Dr. Bradley and other scientists aboard the
U.S.S. {Haven} heard were about keeping quiet. Sitting on the balmy
navigation deck of the sleek white ship equipped with elaborate
laboratory instrumentation, Bradley had listened to the initial
briefing three days after the {Haven} left San Francisco. "The naval
equivalent of a Trial Judge Advocate read us the riot act on security,
backing it up with selections from the Federal Espionage Act. Before
he got through it began to look as though Bikini would be but a brief
stop on the way to Leavenworth," Bradley later recorded in his
personal log.[3]
The tests were mounted with assiduous attention to detail. Along
with forty-two thousand U.S. armed forces personnel, and an armada of
about two hundred ships and 150 planes dispatched to both withstand
the atomic damage and help in assessing it,[4] there were hundreds of
military and civilian specialists. The government had assigned an
entire ship, carrying animals and physicians, to study effects of
radioactivity on the fish, plant life, and coral atolls, and its
spread by air and sea.[5] Over four thousand nonhuman test animals[6]
were to be involved in the Able atomic blast--including goats, pigs,
rats, and specially bred mice--in addition to fruit flies.
As he concentrated on the final briefing from Colonel Stafford
Warren, one of the American military's top radiation authorities,
Bradley found himself both fascinated and concerned. To him, medicine
was always destined to be practiced "somewhere in that intermediate
zone which combines both science and humanism."[7] The scientist in
Bradley was fascinated; the humanist in him was concerned.
Colonel Warren explained that a B-29 would fly over Bikini to drop
an A-bomb. A mobile "live" fleet would be about twenty miles away, on
the sea and in the air. The bomb would explode with a power of about
twenty thousand tons of TNT, sending off blinding heat equal to the
sun's.[8]
As the initial flash dissipated, two of the Navy's Marin PBM-S
flying boats (Bradley was assigned to be in one of them) would cruise
closer and closer to the blast until detecting radiation levels deemed
"dangerous." While planes and destroyers would be sent off to follow
the mushroom cloud's travel path, the "live" fleet would gradually
head toward the blast center--where ships berthed under the nuclear
explosion would be examined to find out what an atom bomb of twenty
kilotons or so could do to aircraft carriers, battleships, and other
military equipment.[9] U.S. commanders had designated seventy-three
ships to serve as the atomic explosion's target fleet.[10]
Having heard the last briefing and received their assignments,
Bradley and most of his scientific colleagues went ashore on Bikini's
main island--four miles long and about two hundred yards wide--a sandy
sliver in the Pacific immensity. "The sun was rich with its tropical
intensity, and the sky full of the clustering thunderheads," Bradley
wrote in his notebook. "The beauty of this Bikini setting seems to
belong to another world entirely, having no relation to the strange
mission which brings us here."[11]
Indeed, Bikini's beauty masked radioactive poisons that would prove
fatal to natives and GIs alike.
------
1. David Bradley, {No Place to Hide} (Boston: Little, Brown and Company,
1948), pp. 18-20.
2. Herbert York, {The Advisors: Oppenheimer, Teller, and the Superbomb}
(San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Co., 1976), p. 19.
3. Bradley, {No Place to Hide}, p. 5.
4. Michael Uhl and Tod Ensign, {GI Guinea Pigs} (Chicago: Playboy Press,
1980), p. 34
5. Bradley, {No Place to Hide}, p. 15.
6. Uhl and Ensign, {GI Guinea Pigs}, p. 34.
7. Bradley, {No Place to Hide}, p. 15.
8. Ibid., pp. 18, 19.
9. Ibid., p. 20.
10. {Time}, July 8, 1946, p. 20.
11. Bradley, {No Place to Hide}, p. 21.
------
Tested, and Ignored
It is not entirely accurate to describe the veterans of America's
nuclear weapons tests as "guinea pigs." Until the late 1970s the U.S.
Government had made no epidemiological inquiries into the health of
these servicemen, established no studies about long-term effects of
their radiation exposure. As "guinea pigs," at least 250,000 U.S.
troops[12]--directly exposed to atomic radiation during seventeen
years of nuclear bomb testing--were neglected by their overseers.
Between 1946 and 1962 orders routinely sent American soldiers close
to hundreds of atomic blasts. The logistics of their roles changed,
as did the kinds of terrain. But what did not vary were the presence
of radioactive fallout and official assurances that it was harmless.
In the 1970s as some media attention focused on charges that
participation in nuclear tests had caused serious diseases, the U.S.
Government denied any responsibility. Continuing to reject service-
connected radiation claims from veterans and their widows, the
Veterans Administration asserted that servicemen had been exposed to
harmless "low-level" radiation.
In 1977, more than thirty years after Able exploded, pressure from
publicized battles between the VA and atomic vets moved a federal
agency--the Center for Disease Control--to conduct the first health
study of America's nuclear veterans.[13]
The survey was confined to the 3,224 men who were in the Nevada
desert military maneuvers at a 1957 atomic test code-named Smoky. An
initial eighteen-month assessment, released in 1979, discovered more
than twice the normal leukemia rate among those servicemen. In more
detailed statistics that followed, the federal researchers found nine
cases of leukemia among those same soldiers--a ratio nearly three
times the average. "This represents a significant increase over the
expected incidence of 3 1/2 cases," reported a research team headed by
Center for Disease Control official Dr. Glyn C. Caldwell, in a study
summary published in the {Journal of the American Medical Association}
in autumn 1980.[14]
The Smoky test soldiers, however, represent only about 1 percent of
U.S. servicemen exposed to nuclear testing. Extrapolation of the
completed federal study conclusions would strongly indicate that
several hundred veterans died from leukemia alone as a result of their
involvement in the tests. The estimate does not include deaths from
numerous forms of cancer, blood disorders, and other ailments.
The implications of the federal government's own study seemed to
make no impact on the VA. Consistent with policies toward the
veterans of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the agency continued its practice
of turning down the claims. The VA granted an occasional publicized
atomic vet's request for benefits--being careful not to concede that
the terminal illness was tied to bomb test radiation exposure. But
for the overwhelming majority of irradiated veterans, the Smoky study
results notwithstanding, encounters with the VA continued to mean
dealing with an administrative stone wall.
Sensitive to mounting public accusations of unfair treatment toward
nuclear test veterans, VA general counsel Guy H. McMichael III told
Congress in 1979 that no individual autopsy or diagnosis could
establish connection between an illness and prior radiation exposure.
"There are serious difficulties inherent in the adjudication of claims
involving more lengthy post-exposure development of cancer," he
maintained, "when there is no pathological evidence to indicate that
the disease process began in service."[15] The VA cited as a
complicating aspect of radiation compensation policies "the fact that
radiation-induced cancers have no unique pathological characteristics
to distinguish them from cancer due to `natural' factors. This makes
it impossible to determine with {certainty} whether such a disease
would have occurred regardless of the radiation exposure."[16]
Meanwhile, as of 1981, the VA has turned down more than 98 percent
of radiation-based claims for atomic veterans' service-connected
benefits.[17] In the summer of 1980 the Pentagon issued a widely
circulated press release claiming that "most exposures to DoD
[Department of Defense] personnel during the tests were quite low--
averaging about half a rem. . . . Of course, many received no
exposure at all, and some received more. Our research indicates that
only a very small percentage exceeded 5 rem per year, the current
Federal guideline for allowable annual dose to radiation workers."[18]
The Defense Department statement, released thirty-four years after
America's first peacetime nuclear test, concluded on a soothing note:
"In summary, based upon research to date, the average exposure of
atmospheric nuclear test participants is about {one-tenth} of the
level that is generally agreed as an acceptable annual exposure for
radiation workers."[19] Despite the Center for Disease Control's
findings a year earlier, the Pentagon stated that "approximately one
fatal cancer per 20,000 individuals" would result.[20]
But many of America's veterans of nuclear testing were in no mood to
be placated by Pentagon press releases. Their voices, scattered
around the nation, had grown louder and more cohesive as the 1970s
progressed. In 1979 the National Association of Atomic Veterans was
founded by former Army sergeant Orville Kelly, and his wife, Wanda.
Kelly had witnessed twenty-two nuclear weapons test explosions while
serving as commander of Japtan, a small land mass in the Marshall
Islands, two decades earlier.[21]
Kelly's experiences were fairly typical. As described in an NAAV
newsletter he "wore a film badge, which measured gamma radiation, from
April 1, 1958 to August 31, 1958. During that time, the badge
recorded an exposure of 3.445 rems. At no time was he measured for
beta radiation or for possible internal deposition of radionuclides.
The equipment used on the island for environmental monitoring also
only measured gamma radiation."[22]
Formation of NAAV in August 1979 brought a strong response from
atomic veterans and widows all over the country. Within a year three
thousand had become members of the association, operating out of
headquarters in Burlington, Iowa, the hometown of Orville and Wanda
Kelly. Together with nuclear veterans and supporters in every state,
they set about challenging the Veterans Administration's treatment of
former servicemen exposed to radiation while in the military.
Diagnosed as suffering from lymphocytic lymphoma in June 1973,
Orville Kelly's claims for service-connected benefits were repeatedly
rejected by the VA.[23] Hobbled by the pain of his cancer and
powerful chemotherapy drugs, Kelly traveled as much as he could,
meeting with atomic veterans and speaking out on their behalfs. In
the process Kelly's own often-rebuffed claim became a cause celebre,
and a severe embarrassment to the VA and Defense Department.
In November 1979, after five years of denials, the VA's Board of
Veterans Appeals granted Kelly's claim. The decision conceded the
{plausibility} of a link between in-service radiation exposure and
later cancer, but stopped short of acknowledging a definite
connection. The VA made clear that the Kelly decision would not serve
as a precedent for other such claims, which would still be processed
case-by-case.[24]
Kelly was well aware that only a handful of atomic vets had been
successful in gaining compensation. In April 1980, two months before
he died, Orville Kelly said from his sickbed: "Although our claims
are difficult to prove because we cannot feel, taste, hear or smell
radiation, it is more deadly than bullets or shrapnel."[25]
Articulating the sentiments of thousands who had joined the National
Association of Atomic Veterans, Kelly added: "I believe I should have
been warned about the possible dangers of radiation exposure and that
medical examinations should have been conducted on a regular basis
after my exposure. The truth is that I was never warned nor were
examinations ever performed. During all the years after I left the
Army, I was never once told to get a physical because I participated
in nuclear weapons testing. Even though I won my case, I have still
lost the overall battle because doctors have told me I have but a
short time to live."[26]
After Kelly's death it became clearer than ever that the NAAV would
not disappear. In fact the organization showed signs of continued
growth, issuing bimonthly newsletters to its thousands of members and
establishing field organizers in every region of the nation. The
federal department perhaps most hostile to the NAAV's aims was the
Defense Nuclear Agency at the Pentagon. "We're not in the health
effects business--we're in the defense business," DNA spokesman
Colonel Bill McGee told an interviewer in 198O.[27] However,
responding to adverse publicity, DNA had set up a toll-free telephone
number in the late 1970s to gather information from veterans of
nuclear testing--and by early 1981 had accumulated more than forty
thousand names and current addresses of atomic veterans or next of
kin.[28]
DNA refused requests by the National Association of Atomic Veterans
for those names and addresses.[29] The Veterans Administration,
meanwhile, after more than a year's delay, in January 1981 agreed to
provide NAAV with its record of atomic vets' names and addresses.[30]
But the VA had only 2 percent of the number of names accumulated by
the Defense Nuclear Agency.[31]
DNA's refusal to share its large cache of data was consistent with
the agency's combative posture toward the nation's nuclear veterans.
A DNA refrain has been the contention that servicemen received very
low levels of radiation.
But support for the NAAV cause came in the form of a rebuttal from
Dr. Edward Martell, a former fallout analyst for the Air Force and
Atomic Energy Commission. Testifying at a citizens' hearing in
Washington on April 12, 1980, he said: "The best way of deceiving all
of you about the effects of radiation is to talk about the effects of
one kind of radiation when you're measuring the other."[32] A
scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research based in
Colorado, Martell stated that internally absorbed alpha and beta
particles are intentionally ignored by government authorities.[33]
Martell alleged that Pentagon officials "take film badge records,
which are a measure of penetrating radiation, and they discuss the
small degree of effect expected in the way of cancers and leukemias.
But most cancer and leukemias are due instead to internal
emitters"[34]--nuclear-fission by-products such as strontium, cesium,
and plutonium, which were not measured by dosimetry badges.[35]
Even journalists priding themselves on hard-hitting investigative
research are inclined to defer to seemingly superior knowledge of
Defense Department experts. Such was the case on September 28, 1980,
when the CBS television program {60 Minutes} broadcast a segment on
nuclear vets.
{60 Minutes} showed brief interviews with atomic veterans Orville
Kelly and Harry Coppola, filmed only a few weeks before their deaths.
But the program focused on DNA director Vice Admiral Robert R.
Monroe.[36]
Admiral Monroe informed CBS correspondent Morley Safer--and tens of
millions of TV viewers--that at the nuclear tests "meticulous
precautions were taken to ensure that the exposures were within limits
thought to be safe. We have almost no indication today that there is
a statistically higher proportion of cancer deaths." And, the admiral
added, "This weapon testing exposure is a very, very, very, very tiny
amount of very low-level radiation." Admiral Monroe explained that
about 16 percent of American men die of cancer, so of course the
disease would occur among some nuclear veterans.[37]
The Pentagon representative's on-camera assertions went unchallenged
as CBS presented no contrary scientific view. The {60 Minutes}
segment did not mention the government's own Center for Disease
Control study--public for well over a year by that time--showing a
leukemia rate more than twice expected among veterans who participated
in the Smoky test.[38]
Numerous veterans wrote angry letters to {60 Minutes}, which quoted
from a couple of critical ones on the air. But the CBS editors seemed
to have retained unshaken faith in the Pentagon's integrity. The
program quoted a viewer's letter charging that "the government's
treatment of these men is a national disgrace and perhaps the biggest
whitewash since Tom Sawyer painted his Aunt Polly's fence." But {60
Minutes} immediately sought to dispel the aspersion on the Defense
Department's sincerity, as anchorman Mike Wallace declared flatly:
"However, the government is interested in getting the facts, and wrote
to us to please tell atomic vets to call, toll-free 800-336-3068."[39]
Among the outraged atomic veterans was a Hagerstown, Maryland,
resident--George E. Mace. In a letter to {60 Minutes} producer Joseph
Wershba, Mace pointed out that "you graciously provided interested
atomic veterans with the Defense Nuclear Agency toll free telephone
number, so they could seek information and help from a Government
which just the week before had said they were insignificant and
financially not worth the bother."[40]
Three weeks after the atomic veterans segment was aired, in a one-
sentence footnote to its mailbag excerpts, {60 Minutes} finally
mentioned the high leukemia rate among atomic vets found by the Center
for Disease Control.
For George Mace, a participant in twenty-two atomic tests in 1958,
the issues went far deeper than a sophisticated journalist was likely
to convey.[41] "Cancer is not the only disease or health problems
encountered by the atomic veteran," he wrote. "There are blood and
bone marrow diseases, respiratory diseases, general deterioration of
health, sterility, mental stress or breakdown, and genetic
damage."[42]
In late 1980 the National Association of Atomic Veterans published a
brief article advising members not to donate blood or sign up for
organ donor programs. The newsletter notice expressed a deep sadness
common to radiation victims: "All veterans who were exposed to
radiation during atomic tests and are now participating in such
programs are urged to notify the state or national organization that
they are atomic veterans and request a decision on acceptability of
future participation. It is a scientific fact that radioisotopes
concentrate in specific organs of the body, one of which is bone
marrow which produces mature blood cells. Let us not perpetrate this
curse on another human being!"[43]
------
12. The U.S. Department of Defense has estimated there were approximately
210,000 atomic test servicemen. Most other sources say the number was
higher. The National Association of Atomic Veterans has calculated
the figure at between 250,000 and 400,000. These estimates do not
include the many thousands of civilians who participated in the
testing at close range.
13. G. C. Caldwell, et al., "Leukemia Among Participants in Military
Maneuvers at a Nuclear Bomb Test: A Preliminary Report," {Journal of
the American Medical Association}, October 3, 1980, pp. 1575-1578.
14. Ibid., p. 1575.
15. U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, "Statement by Guy
H. McMichael III," June 20, 1979, p. 6.
16. Ibid.
17. Lewis Golinker, attorney, National Veterans Law Center in Washington,
D.C., interviews, February-May 1981.
Atomic veterans appealing to the courts for help, after VA
rejections, have been blocked by the government's use of a 1950 Supreme
Court decision in the case of {Feres v. United States}. The "Feres
doctrine" has made it nearly impossible for veterans or family members
to sue the government for injuries inflicted while in the U.S.
military. (For an analysis of political and legal issues involved, see
Lewis M. Milford, "Justice Is Not a GI Benefit," {Progressive}, August
1981, pp. 32-35.)
18. U.S. DOD, {Nuclear Test Personnel Review} (Washington, D.C.: Defense
Nuclear Agency, 1980), pp. 5-6.
19. Ibid., p. 11.
20. Ibid.
21. Account of Orville Kelly's life and founding of NAAV is drawn from
{Atomic Veterans' Newsletter}, September-October 1979, pp. 6-7.
22. {Atomic Veterans' Newsletter}, September-October 1979, p. 6.
23. Ibid., p. 7.
24. {New York Times}, November 27, 1979, p. 18.
25. "Statement of Orville Kelly," {Citizens' Hearings for Radiation
Victims} (hereafter cited as {Citizens' Hearings}), Washington, D C.,
April 11, 1980 (National Committee for Radiation Victims, 317
Pennsylvania Ave., SE, Washington, D.C. 20003.)
26. Ibid.
27. {People}, November 10, 1980, p. 44.
28. Years after they called DNA's toll-free phone number and submitted
information, all the scores of atomic veterans we interviewed said
they had received at most a form letter, and no substantial follow-up,
from the government. For its part the Pentagon continued to gather
informational responses from atomic veterans. In 1981 the
overwhelming majority of backlogged responses from veterans were not
being put to any apparent use by Pentagon agencies. Meanwhile the
Defense Department was paying the National Academy of Sciences--an
institution with long-standing and harmonious ties to governmental
nuclear interests--to study the health of veterans who participated in
a few bomb test series. With no results expected before 1982 at the
earliest, that study addressed the health of about 15 percent of the
veterans who took part in atomic tests.
29. Golinker, interview, February 1981; Golinker to authors, January 13,
1981.
30. VA Administrator Max Cleland to Golinker, January 2, 1981.
31. Golinker interview.
32. {Citizens' Hearings}, pp. 26-28.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid.
35. The Defense Nuclear Agency, in support of its claim that the exposure
received by atomic soldiers was too small to cause cancer, uses an
average obtained from film-badge readings. This approach is fraught
with distortions. First, not everybody wore a film badge. Often a
badge was issued to only one person in the platoon. Second, and
perhaps most important, the largest source of exposure to the troops
was probably the inhalation of radioactive dust, or the ingestion of
contaminated water--neither of which was measured by badges. The
several hundred isotopes produced immediately after an atomic
detonation were swirled around by high-speed winds. Although only a
small percentage of this fresh fallout is made up of long-lived
isotopes like plutonium, there would still be a significant amount
produced. Because the distribution of the fallout would not be
uniform, there were no doubt several "hot spots" in the areas where
troops were posted.
36. {60 Minutes}, CBS television network program segment titled "Time
Bomb," September 28, 1980, transcript provided by CBS News.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid., letters segment broadcast.
40. George Mace to Joseph Wershba, October 20, 1980.
41. We asked Joseph Wershba for his response to the criticisms leveled by
nuclear veterans regarding the {60 Minutes} story he produced. Wershba
replied with a note, dated January 22, 1981, saying: "As for personal
comment, we're responsible for what goes out over the air so the script
and follow-up will have to stand for itself."
42. Mace to Wershba, October 20, 1980.
43. {Atomic Veterans' Newsletter}, winter 1980, p. 13.
------
Selling the Bomb
The root of the curse that plagued the atomic veterans had in fact
been resisted as early as the 1946 Bikini detonations. Though their
voices were overwhelmed by the emotions of the nascent Cold War,
numerous top-level American scientists had argued strenuously against
nuclear bomb testing. Some pleaded, with tragic foresight, that the
testing would be biologically dangerous. Others warned that it was
unnecessary and would make more difficult the job of controlling
atomic energy worldwide.[44] The Federation of Atomic Scientists also
expressed fear that in the midst of a vast ocean, the nuclear
explosions would seem relatively puny, creating an unrealistic image
of their power--which would be used to devastate cities rather than
isolated battleships or remote atolls.
Before sending mushroom clouds up over the Bikini atolls, Operation
Crossroads was the subject of several months of intensiVe media
buildup.[45] U.S. military and civilian commanders carefully and
successfully set the tone for press coverage of nuclear displays--thus
defining the formative notions of atomic weapons for most citizens.
Motivations for U.S. atomic tests were increasingly depicted as
benign, circumscribed, and well-meaning.
{Newsweek} first headlined its advance coverage of Operation
Crossroads scenarios "ATOMIC BOMB: GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH."[46] By
the time the week of Crossroads' first test blast arrived, {Newsweek}
headed its preview coverage "SIGNIFICANCE: THE GOOD THAT MAY COME
FROM THE TESTS AT BIKINI."[47]
Washington bureau chief Ernest K. Lindley urged {Newsweek}'s readers
to keep in mind that the atomic explosions were for scientific and
military research, not for planetary saber-rattling: "None of these
tests is planned as a spectacle; none is intended to show the world
what a powerful weapon the atom bomb is. None is intended for
diplomatic or political effect."[48]
With mass media uncritically relaying the military's line, the
public image of Operation Crossroads became one of self-defense and
even humanitarianism. "The Bikini tests are set up to measure the
effects of atomic explosions, not only on ships but on a wide variety
of equipment and military ground weapons and on life itself,"
{Newsweek} declared on the eve of the first Crossroads blast. "The
tests on animals, at varying distances from the explosion should be
especially valuable, through their contribution to medical
knowledge."[49] {United States News} informed readers that "only the
coming tests can give the final answer to the main question of how
today's modern warship can stand up in combat in an age of atomic
warfare."[50]
The humanistic theme was reiterated. "One of the answers being
sought in the tests will be to see whether more sensitive or more
exact devices may be needed to indicate quickly enough the need for
special medical treatment of atom bomb victims," reported {Science
News Letter}, adding: "Whether the radiation injury from atom bombs
will cause sterility in the victims or cause defects in such children
as they might have will also be studied. While it will take many
years before such genetic effects could be determined from following
atom bomb survivors in Japan, laboratory animals and insects, such as
drosophila, can provide the answers much faster."[51]
And, a later issue of the periodical went on--with unknowing irony-
-"Cancer research may get some help from the atomic bomb explosions at
Bikini."[52]
Missing from the press billing of Operation Crossroads were any
serious suggestions that subjects of the atomic test experiments
included human beings.[53] {United States News} dubbed the blast
target ships the "guinea-pig fleet," but devoted scant attention to
the forty-two thousand human beings in uniform nearby.[54]
------
44. Uhl and Ensign, {GI Guinea Pigs}, p. 37.
45. Originally announced for early May 1946, Operation Crossroads was
delayed for a few weeks. The postponement enabled President Truman's
emissary Bernard Baruch to proclaim U.S. support for worldwide nuclear
controls, in his speech to the fledgling United Nations, {before} the
U.S. proceeded with atomic bomb tests; "it was felt," noted historian
Robert Jungk, "that they would be a discordant accompaniment to the
forthcoming presentation of the American plan for international control
to the United Nations Organization" (Robert Jungk, {Brighter Than a
Thousand Suns} [New York: Harcourt Brace 1958], p. 240.) Other
motives were involved, however. "The real reason for the delay was
closer to home" than global tensions, {Newsweek} reported. "Operation
Crossroads would have drawn 120 senators and representatives, a
record-breaking number for Congressional junkets, away from Washington
for six weeks and thus endangered the Administration's legislative
program." At stake were proposals for extension of the peacetime
draft, military appropriations, and measures to boost development of
atomic energy. ({Newsweek}, April 1, 1946, pp. 21-22.)
46. {Newsweek}, February 4, 1946, p. 30.
47. {Newsweek}, July 1, 1946, p. 21.
48. Ibid.
49. Ibid.
50. {United States News}, February 1, 1946, p. 27.
51. {Science News Letter}, May 11, 1946, p. 294.
52. {Science News Letter}, July 6, 1946, p. 4.
53. Some apprehensions about the Bikini atomic blasts were publicized.
Fears of cracked ocean floors, vaporized seas, and gigantic oceanwide
tidal waves--plausibly destined to be disproved--received more general
press attention than the issue of long-term radiation effects. See,
for example, {Newsweek}, July 1, 1946, p. 20.
54. {United States News}, February 1, 1946, p. 26.
------
Experimenting at Bikini
In a twin-engine plane twenty miles from the falling atomic bomb Dr.
David Bradley waited anxiously, looking out through black goggles
toward the Bikini lagoon. "Then, suddenly we saw it--a huge column of
clouds, dense, white, boiling up through the strato-cumulus, looking
much like any other thunderhead but climbing as no storm cloud ever
could." The atomic conflagration was rising from its midair
detonation point at a speed of two miles per minute. "The evil
mushrooming head soon began to blossom out. It climbed rapidly to
30,000 to 40,000 feet, growing a tawny-pink from oxides of nitrogen,
and seemed to be reaching out in an expanding umbrella overhead."[55]
In the hours immediately after the explosion, with Geiger counters
clicking rapidly, radiological monitoring planes swept through the air
around the mushroom cloud. No one seemed to know whether the gas
masks worn by the crews would filter out harmful radioactive
particles.[56]
As Bradley's plane drew closer to the cloud, passengers could see
many of the target ships afire below; a few were sinking. "Expecting
much more dire and dramatic events our crew was disappointed," he
recalled. "There was much pooh-poohing of the Bomb over the
interphone."[57]
The Able test countdown and explosion seemed to bring the atomic
bomb within human scale. "Awful as it was, it was less than the
expectations of many onlookers," remarked {Time} magazine. "There was
no earthquake, no `tidal' (seismic) wave or other catastrophe to
justify the fears of crackpots that the bomb would bring the end of
the world."[58] And {Newsweek} expressed some optimism in its
coverage: "Man, pygmy that he is in the endless stretch of time, set
off his fourth atom bomb this week. Trembling, he waited once again
to see if he had wrought his own destruction. . . . Yet, as the
macabre cloud of his fourth explosion rose majestically from Bikini's
environs . . . he could sigh with relief. Alive he was; given time
and the sanity of nations, he might yet harness for peace the greatest
force that living creatures had ever released on this earth."[59] The
limitation of visible physical impact was in the spotlight; little
attention was devoted to invisible radioactive fallout.[60]
A week after the Able explosion Dr. Bradley boarded a patrol gunboat
at Bikini and headed westward, reaching a small atoll after an hour's
journey. "Even below the high water mark, on the south shore, whose
rocky ledges are constantly being sluiced by the foaming breakers,
even here we found radioactive material, invisibly and almost
permanently adsorbed to the surface of the rocks. It isn't enough to
be serious, but illustrates the difficulty of trying to clean any
rough surface of fission products. Even the great Pacific itself
cannot wash out a roentgen of it."[61]
The radiation could not be cleansed away. The situation became
severely aggravated when the U.S. went ahead with its second postwar
nuclear shot, code-named Baker, set off three and a half weeks later.
Baker exploded underwater at a shallow location beneath the lagoon
surface, displacing two million tons of water.[62]
Instruments in Bradley's monitor plane detected radiation from the
targeted ships and the ocean water. Needles on all Geiger counters
quickly went off scale.[63] Radioed orders to abandon the survey task
were a great relief to the crews--"with radiation so intense at such
an altitude, that at water level would certainly be lethal. And this
wasn't just a point source, it was spread out over an area miles
square."[64]
For many weeks afterward monitors found radiation permeating the
ecosystem of the Bikini atolls.[65] Meantime many thousands of
sailors were aboard ships anchored in Bikini's lagoon. Four days
after the Baker detonation Dr. Bradley and his coworkers became aware
that "the live fleet is lying at anchor in dangerous water. . . . By
noon the intensity was such as to endanger our water intakes and
evaporators."[66] The entire fleet pulled up anchors and moved in an
attempt to escape the radioactivity.[67]
But U.S. servicemen were being sent aboard the target fleet--about
one hundred ships--under orders to scrub off the persistent radiation.
More than a week after the Baker blast Dr. Bradley observed "most of
the ships are still in quarantine because of radioactivity." The
decks were "still so hot as to permit only short shifts of twenty
minutes to an hour. The rain which fell contained the equivalent of
tons of radium."[68] For Navy hands accustomed to swabbing the decks,
it was an exercise in frustration. Scrubbing the vessels, with help
from fire-fighting equipment, provided "no relief from the `damned
Geigers.'"[69] Two years later those ships remained highly
radioactive.[70]
For all the official public talk about Operation Crossroads being a
crucial experiment, from the standpoint of scientific inquiry it had a
number of peculiarly flawed aspects.
For example the Navy killed Bikini atoll insects before the first
atomic explosion there--preventing any accurate assessment of the bomb
radiation impacts on the land food chain. Unlike mass circulation
periodicals, the small journal {Science News Letter} noticed the
action, reporting after the first blast: "The atom bomb's effect on
Bikini's ecology will have a blurred record because DDT was sprayed
over the atoll islands before Seabee forces went to work there weeks
ago. This was done to abate the plague of flies that wrecked comfort
and threatened health. Biologists making the `before-B day' survey
objected but Navy authorities decided in favor of the Seabees."[71]
Whether the test supervisors were merely concerned about
servicemen's comfort--or whether they also wished to preclude the
possibility of news accounts revealing that an atomic explosion had
wiped out insect life--remained unclear. But, as {Science News
Letter} correspondent Dr. Frank Thone pointed out, DDT
indiscriminately kills almost all aboveground insects--including those
transferring pollen to sustain plant life. So use of the DDT
predictably clouded reasons for insect and plant deaths on Bikini.[72]
The government's DDT dousing prevented systematic evaluation of
radiation effects on other atoll life as well. "Some birds and almost
all lizards depend mainly on insects for food," Thone reminded
readers. "Recent experiments indicate that DDT-poisoned insects do
not kill birds and fishes that eat them but if the insects are killed
off, where will the birds find food? . . . This one monkey-wrench,
thrown into this atoll's ecology, sprinkles question marks all over
the biological record."[73]
Those life forms that escaped the DDT were not missed by the
radiation. After the Baker test ordinarily bright-hued coral heads
were white, and dead; their normally nurturing surroundings remained
highly radioactive. Dr. Bradley's "first netful of sand dumped upon
the fantail of our boat proved to be so radioactive that in a panic I
had the whole catch thrown overboard."[74]
The implications were disturbing. Intensive radiation on the lagoon
bottom threatened to contaminate the ocean food chain. After two more
weeks passed, Bradley found that nearly all seagoing fish caught
around the atoll were radioactive.[75]
Government authorities and the mass media neglected such biological
issues. More conspicuous, however, was the failure to decontaminate
the target ships; the military had little choice but to concede a
lingering problem.[76] In the words of Bradley's log, there remained
"a real hazard from elements present which cannot be detected by the
ordinary field methods. . . . recent studies with the alpha counter
have established the presence of alpha emitters, notably
plutonium."[77] A month after the Baker explosion it became clear
that ship surfaces would shed radioactivity only through sandblasting
or administering huge quantities of strong acid.[78] Seven weeks
after the blast, laboratory studies were consistently detecting "a
small but definite amount of plutonium spread atom-thin over most of
the contaminated areas."[79]
The public version of Operation Crossroads was that no long-term
harm had been inflicted by the tests. Bradley's conclusions were far
different: "We don't know to what distances from Bikini the radiation
disease may be carried. We can't predict to what degree the balance
of nature will be thrown off by atomic bombs."[80]
------
55. Bradley, {No Place to Hide}, p. 55.
56. Ibid., pp. 22-23.
57. Ibid., pp. 57-58.
58. {Time}, July 8, 1946, pp. 20-21.
59. {Newsweek}, July 8, 1946, p. 19.
60. American media eagerly lacquered events even indirectly linked to the
atomic test with thick coats of patriotic heroism. An Associated Press
article--headlined "SCIENTISTS RISK LIVES TO SAVE ATOMIC SECRETS" in
the {Los Angeles Times}--disclosed that "a group of famous scientists
flying to the United States from Bikini, deliberately gambled their
lives today in a thunderstorm over Nebraska by refusing to bail out to
save top secret photographic and instrument records of the atomic
blast." ({Los Angeles Times}, July 5, 1946.)
61. Bradley, {No Place to Hide}, p. 73.
62. Bruce A. Bolt, {Nuclear Explosions and Earthquakes} (San Francisco:
W. H. Freeman and Co., 1976), p. iv.
63. Bradley, {No Place to Hide}. p. 95.
64. Ibid., pp. 96-97.
65. Ibid., pp. 98, 107-108, 126.
66. Ibid., pp. 100-101.
67. Ibid., p. 101.
68. Ibid., p. 102.
69. Ibid., p. 103.
70. Uhl and Ensign, {GI Guinea Pigs}, p. 44.
71. {Science News Letter}, July 6, 1946, p. 3.
72. Ibid.
73. Ibid.
74. Bradley, {No Place to Hide}, pp. 107-108.
75. Ibid., p. 126.
76. Ibid., pp. 115-116.
77. Ibid., pp. 116-117.
78. Ibid., pp. 131-132.
79. Ibid., p. 147.
80. Ibid., p. 149.
------
Crossroads Veterans
Like their later counterparts, servicemen at the 1946 atomic testing
were almost nonpersons--little more than props in a grandiose show.
Early onset of health problems among American troops sent onto the
radioactive ships was not publicized. Operation Crossroads veterans
were to recall, sometimes bitterly, that they were provided no special
cleanup garb as they scrubbed the contaminated decks. Most emphasize
they were provided no radiation-detection badges or other monitoring
gear.
Three decades later, under short-lived congressional pressure, U.S.
Department of Energy acting assistant secretary Dr. Donald Kerr
admitted that the government could document radiation-exposure badges
for only about one quarter of the servicemen at Operation Crossroads.
The ratio dropped to about one tenth for the next atomic test
series.[81]
For participants at Operation Crossroads the pair of twenty-three-
kiloton nuclear detonations were only the start of their hazardous
ordeals. Sent onto the targeted vessels within days--sometimes merely
a few hours--after the atom bomb explosions, they scoured the
irradiated surfaces for weeks on end, at times living on the same
ships. They routinely drank water distilled--through frequently
contaminated evaporators--from the lagoon that Dr. Bradley and his
colleagues were finding to be so intensely radioactive.[82] Former
Navy servicemen tell of entire crews falling violently sick soon after
boarding ships hot with radioactivity. Chronic, painful illnesses
inexorably followed.
Vice Admiral W. H. P. Blandy, commander of the Operation Crossroads
joint Army-Navy task force, had been quick to proclaim the atomic
experiment "highly successful." {Newsweek} reported at the time:
"There had been no human casualties, though Admiral Blandy cautiously
warned some might yet be overexposed to radiation [a rare public
admission that received no substantive media follow-up]. For, he
said, the personnel were eager to board the ships for the military and
scientific findings that would affect the future of mankind."[83]
Judging from dozens of interviews with Operation Crossroads veterans
contacted for this book, Admiral Blandy may have greatly overstated
just how eager "the personnel" were to climb aboard the radioactive
vessels.
Jack Leavitt, for instance, had enlisted in the Navy in 1941, before
his eighteenth birthday. Stationed in California, he was twenty-two
years old when he learned he was headed for Operation Crossroads in
early 1946. "Someone told me it was volunteer only, but I was not
asked if I wanted to participate, only to report for duty. I had
volunteered to join the Navy, and I guess that was good enough."[84]
After the Able atomic blast Leavitt was ordered to board the U.S.S.
{Pensacola}, a heavy cruiser among the hardest-hit large ships in the
Bikini target zone. He was assigned to a team "to scrub down the
decks to wash off any radioactive fallout." Leavitt was aware that
"at no time did I or anyone working with me--that is, naval
personnel--have a Geiger counter, nor any other testing device to
measure danger of radiation."
Leavitt and the others in his crew ate K-rations and sandwiches, and
drank water filtered from the lagoon.[85]
Leavitt's stint aboard the {Pensacola} was cut short by news of the
death of his mother, and he left for the United States after nine days
on the radioactive cruiser. Ever since boarding the {Pensacola} his
health had deteriorated. "I had diarrhea for some time after the
test, but was told it was emotional and would go away. I had
accompanying pain in the lower abdomen, and in the right side. And
have had since. I have had stomach trouble since 1946."[86] His
later ailments included colitis, bleeding of the bladder, and
obstructive lung disease, all malfunctions of organs vulnerable to
internally absorbed radioactive particles. The Veterans
Administration refused to provide medical treatment.[87]
In 1981, at age fifty-seven, Jack Leavitt spoke to us from his home
in Mesa, Arizona. "They asked me to participate in a test I knew
nothing about, and gave no guarantee as to what could result from
these tests. Upon completion of tests I felt I was forgotten and
rejected for further testing of any ailments." For Leavitt, who
served in World War II and the Korean War, the continuing injustice of
Operation Crossroads remained hard to accept. The government, he
noted, "still doesn't want to admit any possible guilt for cause of
alteration of the lives of those `volunteers' who {gave} at that
time--but when they ask now for help they are rebuffed and told to
simply forget it ever happened."[88]
Like so many other atomic veterans Jack Leavitt refused to forget.
"I am bitter because I have lost my ability to work, to take care of
myself. I collect five hundred thirty-four dollars and ten cents
Social Security. I am totally disabled." With a sad anger in his
voice he said that the government declined to pay for his needed
prescription drugs. His situation, Leavitt stressed, only represented
a small part of a much larger problem. "There must be thousands still
suffering, and loved ones left behind prematurely by early death to
veterans who have passed on with claims pending, and some could still
be alive today if proper treatment was given, and the responsibilities
accepted by those responsible in the first place."[89]
Kenneth H. Tripke, of Brooklyn, Wisconsin, was aboard the U.S.S.
{Quartz} supply ship at Operation Crossroads. "I personally was so
sick," he recalled, "with diarrhea and vomiting for days. I went from
128 to 70-some pounds. I turned a funny color, lost all my hair on my
body." Taken onto a hospital ship, Tripke was fed intravenously.
Ever since, severe weight loss plagued him, along with calcium
deposits in his eyes impairing his sight, and sharp hip pains. "My
back, shoulders, nerves, etc., are in poor shape."[90]
A day after the Baker underwater blast Frank F. Karasti and three
other seamen were sent aboard the destroyer {Hughes} to keep it from
sinking. Karasti who later settled in Winton, Minnesota, was twenty-
six years old at the time. "Out of the four hours we spent on her,
two were spent vomiting and retching as we all became violently ill."
Like many Crossroads veterans, Karasti never forgot that drinking
water came from conversion of the Bikini lagoon water. Lesions
appeared on his lungs about a month after the second Crossroads
explosion; serious breathing problems evolved. Since 1948 he
suffered from "uncontrollable hypertension." As with many Crossroads
veterans Karasti's skin developed frequent severe disturbances. "My
skin is deteriorating on my whole body and it is possible to wash off
parts of it while bathing. . . . I have been aging ahead of my time
and should I use any physical effort, I get ill for three days
after."[91] Frank Karasti's afflictions--serious damage to breathing,
nervous system, and skin, along with overall feelings of premature
aging--are frequently reported by people exposed to atomic radiation.
The day after the first Crossroads blast, Karasti was assigned to
putting out fires on several of the target vessels, including the
bull's-eye ship, the U.S.S. {Nevada}, which had been painted
orange.[92] About two weeks later a Navy crew of about sixty men
boarded the {Nevada}, where they worked, ate, and slept. Among the
crew was seaman Michael W. Stanco, who had in years past been wounded
in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and again in the Philippines.
On board the U.S.S. {Nevada}, "We became deathly ill after eating. I
remember being so ill along with the others."[93]
Reflecting on the events, from his home in New Port Richey, Florida,
Stanco recalled reading that the {Nevada} was later among ships
intentionally sunk because of long-lived intensity of residual
radioactivity. "If this ship was sunk for reasons of contamination,
what effects do you think it had upon the 60 men who ate and slept
aboard it?" he asked. "And what about the divers who sank to their
armpits in ooze--and the other 42,000 men that also participated?"[94]
George McNish of Tampa, Florida, was on the U.S.S. {Coucal} as part
of a radiation survey group at Bikini. "We scuba dived, ate coconuts
from the island and swam, unaware of the danger involved. We had
scientists dressed like for `outer space,' with instruments like I had
never seen. But when it came to diving or bringing up samples, all we
had were `skin and tanks.'" Seven years later he began treatment for
tuberculosis; he later suffered from severe spine deterioration.[95]
A few days after the Baker test Navy seaman Richard Stempel
"anchored among the ships in the target area, swimming nearly every
day and using the water freely. We were never told not to do either.
At one point in operations during rough seas, three other crewmen and
I tied our landing craft to a mooring buoy anchored in the blast area
and climbed aboard. About two hours later, a high ranking officer
came by and checked the radiation level of the moss on the buoy. The
Geiger counter pegged and he ordered us off. He didn't advise us of
any decontamination procedure."[96]
Within a few weeks Stempel "was being treated by ship's doctor for a
skin disorder the doctor was unable to diagnose." The following year
Stempel filed for service-connected VA benefits because of the severe
skin affliction physicians had dubbed "atopic eczema"; the VA
rejected his claim.[97]
Initially the VA's rejection had contended that "the evidence shows
that you had had this affliction since early childhood and there was
no evidence to show that it was aggravated by your military
service."[98] Refiling the claim in 1980, Stempel, living in Grants
Pass, Oregon, submitted "three notarized letters from my father and
two brothers stating I had no skin problems before enlisting in the
U.S. Navy. Again it was refused." Uncompensated, Stempel's skin "has
now deteriorated to where the total skin surface is either red raw,
white scales, or open bleeding sores that itch constantly."[99]
By the early 1980s numerous other Crossroads veterans had begun to
speak out. As Navy veteran Jack Sommerfeld recalled: "We remained
berthed in the lagoon and had to use sea water from the lagoon to make
water with which to wash, bathe and brush teeth and for other
purposes. . . . We were not issued radiation badges."[100] An in-
service photo of Sommerfeld shows a cherubic, smiling youngster in
sailor garb. But in 1980 he was blind, confined to a wheelchair,
suffering from deteriorating skin, and diagnosed with mouth and throat
cancer. His continued efforts to obtain VA compensatory aid went
unrewarded.[101]
Warren E. Zink, an eighteen-year-old fireman first class at
Operation Crossroads, was assigned to go aboard the heavy cruiser
U.S.S. {Salt Lake City} two days after the Able explosion.[102] He
was "accompanied by a scientist who was equipped with a Geiger
counter," Zink explained. "We had no way of telling the severity of
the level of radiation other than noticing the indicator went as far
as it could on the counter."[103] After the Baker test Zink and his
crew returned to the {Salt Lake City} for cleanup and repair work.
The ship was eventually torpedoed because of its extreme
contamination.[104]
"Within two years of my discharge from the U.S. Navy in 1948, I
began having severe headaches, nausea and vomiting," recounted Zink, a
resident of Woodridge, Illinois. After months of hospital tests the
diagnosis was "migraine." In 1973 doctors found that Zink's lungs had
deteriorated severely. "At that time, and I quote my doctor, `my
lungs are 15 years older than the rest of my body.' Today I am
classified as an emphysema patient, I am also bothered by constant
muscle spasms in my legs which never seem to let up."[105]
Pervasive among former military participants in Operation
Crossroads--as well as for others exposed to radiation--are deep
concerns about genetic damage to their children and future
generations.
For William A. Drechin, of Old Forge, Pennsylvania, worries began on
deck of the U.S.S. {Ottawa}, as he faced toward Bikini. He was
nineteen years old. Dizziness and painful headaches soon became part
of his life, and a softball-size lipoma tumor was surgically removed
from his back three years later. But the most painful was yet to
come. In 1954 he and his wife had a son, born nonambulatory. A year
afterward another son was born with the same condition, later
diagnosed as cerebral palsy. The first child died at age twenty-one;
the second at age nine. "There is absolutely no history of defective
births on either side of families," according to Drechin, who blames
his participation in Operation Crossroads for the birth defects of his
two sons. "The seeds of their physical woes were implanted when the
destructive forces of the A-bomb were released on Bikini."[106]
Charlie Andrews, of Riverview, Florida, also was left to agonize
over the genetic legacies of Operation Crossroads. For the last six
months of 1946 he worked on radioactive ships that had been at Bikini.
"We lived on board, drank the water filtered by contaminated
evaporators, and some of the food had been aboard the vessels at the
time of the blast, making it also contaminated." In 1980 the
aftermath of Crossroads was still very much with Andrews: "I find it
very difficult to explain to my 15-year-old son who was born with
deformed legs and no heels, which have been corrected over the years
no thanks to Uncle Sam, the possibility of his children . . . being
deformed also."[107]
Living in Lower Lake, California, Howard C. Taylor harkened back to
his early pride in the Navy. At Bikini in 1946 he was a ship's
officer on the target-zoned U.S.S. {Dawson}, sent onto the vessel
after both test explosions. In the late 1950s, health problems
appeared: lesions on his lungs, calcium deposits in his shoulder, and
black, brittle teeth. They were only the start of his ills. Suddenly
he lost nearly all his vision. He was forced into retirement in 1963.
"I had five children and we were soon quite destitute. My children
all have eye problems. I have a son in a mental institution and
another son who is abnormal and in a foster home. My wife had several
miscarriages."[108]
As occurred for so many atomic veterans, Taylor's strong patriotism
and pride in the U.S. armed forces soured. "I am now disenchanted and
disgusted with the Navy and our government. I and many more veterans
have been deprived of the ability to enjoy and provide for our
families and are now being treated like a bunch of `social
bums.'"[109]
There were civilians involved in Crossroads test operations as well;
they and their families gained no more consideration than their
military counterparts.
Thomas W. Scott received top-secret clearance as a civilian aerial-
ground photographer to film the Able test for the government. After
the explosion his plane followed the dissipating radioactive cloud for
several hours. Scott's wife, Helena, of Camarillo, California, saw
that "for 26 years following `Able Day' his ailments slowly, but
steadily, kept increasing: the choking cough, nausea, vomiting, nose
bleeds, severe back pains, depression and so on, became a daily
routine." Scott died of bone cancer in 1972.[110]
Nor did Americans' radiation exposure from Operation Crossroads end
when the U.S. ships involved left the Bikini area. Scores of the
vessels remained highly radioactive, and some were taken to Hawaii for
disposal.
Gregory Bond Troyer, eighteen, was in the Navy at the time, working
in the Base Craft, Pearl Harbor shipyard. His duties included
securing vessels, still hot from Bikini, to a tug, towing them out to
sea about ten to fifteen miles from Pearl Harbor, and sinking the
ships. He worked without protective clothing; often his chest and
feet were bare. His crew had no exposure badges or radiation
monitoring gear.[111]
A few years later, after honorable discharge from the Navy, Troyer
got married. Attempts to start a family were unsuccessful, intensive
physical exams by doctors determined that Troyer was sterile. In the
mid-1970s physicians discovered Troyer was suffering from
hyperthyroidism. A lesion appeared on his scrotum, attributed to
eczema. Arthritis of neck and shoulders, cysts around his eyes and
forehead, prostate problems, and hearing loss set in also. In 1980,
living in St. Paul, Minnesota, Troyer at age fifty-three remained
under medication for his long-standing thyroid damage.[112]
------
81. Uhl and Ensign, {GI Guinea Pigs}, p. 43.
82. Bradley, {No Place to Hide}, pp. 103-104, 152.
83. {Newsweek}, July 8, 1946, p. 20.
84. Jack Leavitt, taped statement to authors, December 1980.
85. Ibid.
86. Ibid.
87. Ibid.
88. Ibid.
89. Ibid.
90. {Atomic Veterans' Newsletter}, winter 1980, p. 4.
91. Frank Karasti to authors, December 8, 1980.
92. Ibid.
93. {Atomic Veterans' Newsletter}, fall 1980, p. 11.
94. Ibid.
95. {Atomic Veterans' Newsletter}, summer 1980, p. 13.
96. {Atomic Veterans' Newsletter}, winter 1980, p. 9.
97. Ibid.
98. Ibid.
99. Ibid.
100. {Atomic Veterans' Newsletter}, spring 1980, p 11.
101. Ibid.
102. Warren Zink to authors, December 15, 1980.
103. {Atomic Veterans' Newsletter}, fall 1980, p. 5.
104. Ibid.
105. Ibid.
106. William Drechin to authors, December 10, 1980; {Atomic Veterans'
Newsletter}, summer 1980, p. 9.
107. {Atomic Veterans' Newsletter}, fall 1980, p. 8.
108. {Atomic Veterans' Newsletter}, winter 1980, p. 8.
109. Ibid.
110. Helena Scott, "Written Statement," {Citizens' Hearings} April 12, 1980.
111. Gregory Troyer to authors, December 1980; Troyer's complete VA file,
C-13470812.
112. Ibid.
------
Living with Nuclear Weapons
Considering the government's deliberate control of information
before and after Crossroads, it is perhaps no surprise that the test
blasts actually allayed domestic fears of atomic war. "On returning
from Bikini," wrote William L. Laurence, a {New York Times} science
reporter, "one is amazed to find the profound change in the public
attitude toward the problem of the atomic bomb. Before Bikini the
world stood in awe of this new cosmic force. Since Bikini this
feeling of awe has largely evaporated and has been supplanted by a
sense of relief unrelated to the grim reality of the situation.
Having lived with the nightmare for nearly a year [since Hiroshima and
Nagasaki], the average citizen is now only too glad to grasp at the
flimsiest means that would enable him to regain his peace of
mind".[113]
Many years later the public-relations role played by the Bikini
tests of 1946 seemed apparent. "Their spiritual effect was great,"
wrote historian Robert Jungk. "For they soothed the fears of the
American public almost as much as the bombs dropped on Japan had
aroused them."[114]
There had been some opposition to the atomic explosions at Bikini.
After the Federation of Atomic Scientists unsuccessfully attempted to
prevent the tests protesters gathered in New York's Times Square.[115]
But America's nuclear machinery--forged through extremely close
cooperation between government and private industry during the wartime
Manhattan Project--was picking up speed and consolidating alliances
along the way.[116] America had entered the cold war, and atomic
bombs were requisite materiel.
Rhetorical abhorrence of nuclear bombs accompanied the beefed-up
nuclear weaponry appropriations and further atomic bomb test
explosions.[117] President Truman inaugurated "an American political
tradition," as authors Michael Uhl and Tod Ensign described it:
"Denounce the proliferation of nuclear weapons, urge disarmament, and
advocate peaceful uses of atomic energy, while continuing to produce
and test nuclear weapons under the guise of national security."[118]
The issue of how the government should supervise atomic energy came
to the fore in 1946, with a struggle over whether regulation should be
entrusted to the U.S. military or civilian administrators. A petition
campaign, spearheaded by the Federation of Atomic Scientists, deluged
Congress with messages favoring civilian control of the atom. When
the law establishing the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) took effect in
August 1946, its provisions seemed to reflect a victory for the forces
backing civilian authority over nuclear development.[119]
The U.S. Government's executive and legislative branches, with
appointments by the president and confirmation powers plus oversight
duties by Congress, would keep watch over the AEC. Yet, underneath
the proclaimed civilian umbrella, America's top military officers
retained basic roles in the government's atomic policy decisions.
The 1946 law that established the AEC also set up the Military
Liaison Committee, located in the Pentagon and charged with
supervising America's nuclear program from a "national defense"
standpoint. While usually a civilian, that panel's head represented
the Defense Department; the committee's members were military
officers.[120]
Supporters of civilian nuclear control soon began to realize they
had won a hollow victory. The AEC was effectively interwoven with
U.S. military authority--which was, after all, the prime user of the
atom.[121]
Those eager for nuclear proliferation American-style found that in
many respects they could enjoy the best of both worlds: the
appearance of civilian control, with the military still calling the
shots.[122] In the face of Pentagon expertise and clout, the
legislative branch quickly accepted a junior role in nuclear matters.
When the 1950s began, members of the congressional Joint Committee on
Atomic Energy still were not privy to the number of bombs in the U.S.
nuclear stockpile.[123]
The American military, meanwhile, rapidly became the primary source
of funds for scientists in numerous fields. And those who paid the
pipers composed the tunes. By autumn 1946 the trend was becoming
painfully obvious to many atomic scientists, including Philip
Morrison. Speaking at an annual public-affairs forum sponsored by the
{New York Herald Tribune}, Morrison commented on this evolving
relationship: "At the last Berkeley meeting of the American Physical
Society just half the delivered papers . . . were `supported in whole
or in part' by one of the [Armed] Services . . . some schools derive
90 percent of their research support from Navy funds . . . the Navy
contracts are catholic. . . . The now amicable contracts will tighten
up and the fine print will start to contain talk about results and
specific weapon problems. And science itself will have been bought by
war on the installment plan.
"The physicist knows the situation is a wrong and dangerous one. He
is impelled to go along because he really needs the money."[124]
The nation's major universities grew steadily entangled in the
atomic funding net. In spring 1947 prime academic institutional
involvement came from the University of California--operating Los
Alamos in New Mexico and the Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley--and
from the University of Chicago, main operator of the Argonne National
Laboratory along with dozens of other colleges acting as copartners.
By the end of the decade scores more large universities were under
large atomic contracts from the government.
Less than seven months after the AEC came into existence, President
Truman issued a "loyalty order" authorizing police investigations into
the moral fiber and political fidelity of federal employees.[125]
Atomic researchers with government grants were also subject to such
inquiries. Robert Jungk characterized the results as an "unhealthy
climate of suspicion, accusations and time-wasting defense against
false charges."[126]
"From 1947 on," he added, "the atmosphere in which the Western
scientists lived became more and more oppressive every year."
Throughout the U.S., England, and France scientists faced "loyalty
committees," firings, interference with international travel, and
general harassment--so that "in the laboratories of the Western world
people started whispering to one another, anxiously on the watch for
the State's long ears, as had hitherto been the case only in
totalitarian countries."[127]
The fear ran from the lowest lab intern to the most esteemed
scientific pioneer. Attending the University of California, physics
student Theodore Taylor and a few other pupils devised a proposal for
a general strike by American physicists. They approached J. Robert
Oppenheimer, then at the height of his considerable national power in
nuclear policy circles. Taylor always remembered Oppenheimer's words.
After he read over the written proposal, Oppenheimer said, "Take this
paper. Burn it. Never recall it. Anyone who knew of this would
label you a Communist and you would have no end of trouble the rest of
your life."[128]
------
113. Jungk, {Brighter Than a Thousand Suns}, p. 240.
114. Ibid.
115. Bolt, {Nuclear Explosions and Earthquakes}, p. xiv.
116. Most members of a blue-ribbon consultant board, entrusted by the State
Department to come up with an initial plan for international control of
atomic capabilities, were top executives in large American business
institutions--General Electric Company, Monsanto Chemical Company, and
New Jersey Bell Telephone Company. The pattern of policy formulations
dominated by representatives of corporations, standing to reap huge
profits from further nuclear expansion, was well established.
117. For details on proposals and negotiations regarding international
control of atomic energy in the late 1940s, see D. F. Fleming, {The
Cold War and Its Origins}, Vol. I (Garden City and New York:
Doubleday, 1961 ), Chapters 13 and 14; see also, Jungk, {Brighter Than
a Thousand Suns}, Chapters 14 and 15; also, {The H Bomb} (New York:
Didier, 1950), pp. 170-171, for comments by Professor Hans J.
Morganthau.
118. Uhl and Ensign, {GI Guinea Pigs}, p. 32.
119. Fleming, {The Cold War and Its Origins}, pp. 382-383.
120. York, {The Advisors}, p. 61
121. See Jungk, {Brighter Than a Thousand Suns}, p. 244.
122. It soon became clear that entrenched enthusiasts for civilian
jurisdiction over atomic matters generally saw it as the most effective
way to bring the nuclear age to rapid maturity. In a speech aimed at
rallying support for the civilian-control concept, one of its most
influential boosters, Connecticut Senator Brien McMahon, left no doubt
that he was seeking the most productive way to develop a wide array of
atomic technologies: "Of course the military should be consulted on
the military aspects of atomic energy and this is as far as any
civilian commission should be required to go. The military is noted
for its reactionary position in the field of scientific research and
development. The most successful weapons of war throughout history
have been conceived and developed by civilians and the atomic bomb was
no exception. It is because I am concerned about the nation's
security, as well as the development for peaceful use of atomic energy,
that I want civilians to control this force unhindered by the
military." (Fleming, {The Cold War}, p. 382.)
123. {The H Bomb}, p. 158.
124. Jungk, {Brighter Than a Thousand Suns}, p. 248. For an account of the
military's atomic research contracting activities on campuses the
spring after Morrison's speech, see {Business Week}, March 22, 1947,
pp. 32-38.
125. Jungk, {Brighter Than a Thousand Suns}, p. 249.
126. Ibid., p. 251.
127. Ibid.
128. John McPhee, {The Curve of Binding Energy} (New York: Farrar, Straus
& Giroux, 1974), Ballantine paperback edition, p. 41.
------
Eniwetok
When American students opened {Scholastic} magazine's first issue of
1948, they read that their country was planning more nuclear bomb
tests. Under the headline "ADVANCING SCIENCE" was the periodical's
account of upcoming Operation Sandstone:
Eniwetok is a lonely spot. It is a sort of coral necklace of
40 tiny island "beads," far out in the vast Pacific. It lies
about halfway between Hawaii and the Philippines. The nearest
land is more than 100 miles away. The 147 natives of the atoll
are being moved to another island.
But don't get the idea that you can spend a nice, quiet
vacation there. You couldn't even get near the place. Even the
United Nations is barred.
For Eniwetok will become a "forbidden fortress of the atom."
The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission plans to test atomic weapons
there.[129]
Just two years after Operation Crossroads the United States was back
exploding nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands. About twenty
thousand American servicemen were there,[130] during three atomic
detonations from towers on Eniwetok in April and May 1948. Men like
David Lloyd and John E. Knights and Claude E. Cooper participated,
like the good soldiers they were, in the Pentagon's scenarios.
Ten years after Operation Sandstone, Air Force veteran Lloyd got
married. His son Scotty was born in 1960; at the age of ten, Scotty
was diagnosed with bone cancer. A year later Scotty was dead. His
father was left with skin cancer, which doctors termed recurring basal
cell carcinoma, on his nose. Twenty years after the death of his son,
Lloyd, living in Topeka, Kansas, could not forget. "At the present
time," he said, "I feel nothing but bitterness towards my Government
for using me and thousands like me as human guinea pigs."[131]
Lieutenant Colonel John Knights, of Tampa, Florida, had a long
military career spanning service in the Army, Navy, and Air Force. He
was an Army major in 1948, exposed to high amounts of radiation a few
days after the first nuclear shot at Eniwetok, when he helped
extricate a tank from a blast crater. Knights testified about the
experience in front of a citizens' commission in Washington, D.C.,
thirty-two years later: "Back on board the radiological safety ship,
the needle on the radiation meter bounced off scale and I was sent to
the showers for a scrub-down with stiff brushes. I was still very hot
and in a state of shock after the shower and I was sent back to my
state room to recuperate. An hour later I suffered severe nausea and
vomited." Twenty years later he had bladder cancer, combined with
chronically itching skin and sharp pain in his groin that persisted
for decades.[132]
U.S. Navy Lieutenant Claude Cooper died in 1979, after suffering
from prostatic cancer with metastases to his vital organs and all his
bones. "I feel in my heart that my husband's death was attributable
to the radiation he received while participating in Operation
Sandstone at Eniwetok," said his widow, living in Long Beach,
California.[133]
The response to Lloyd and Knights and Mrs. Cooper from the U.S.
Government was the standard one: Denial of responsibility.
At Eniwetok in 1948 atomic weaponry took a substantial leap. Under
joint auspices of the Defense Department and AEC, the Operation
Sandstone tests "evidently did result in substantial improvements in
the efficiency of use of fissile material," according to physicist
Herbert York, a key researcher in U.S. nuclear weapons design.[134]
One forty-nine-kiloton blast, code-named Yoke, expended more than
twice the force of any atomic bomb detonation in previous years.[135]
Operation Sandstone gave a lift to the politicians, industrialists,
generals, and scientists pushing for bigger nuclear weapons outlays.
"Success" of the Sandstone tests "boosted morale at Los Alamos and
helped garner further support for the laboratory in Washington,"
observed York. "As a result, the construction of a new laboratory,
located nearby on South Mesa, was authorized as a replacement for the
wartime facilities that were still being used."[136] More than ever
the fix was in for nuclear testing to be perpetual scenery on the
American political, economic, scientific, and media landscapes; its
tangible benefits had become obvious to its prime constituents.
One of the Los Alamos laboratory's leading physicists, Edward
Teller, recognized that nuclear bomb test explosions would be pivotal
for continually gearing up the nuclear weapons assembly line: from
research and development to production of warheads in bulk. Offered
the directorship of the Los Alamos theoretical division, Teller said
he would accept the post only if the U.S. would conduct a dozen
nuclear tests per year--a rate that seemed unrealistic to Los Alamos
chief Norris Bradbury in the late 1940s.[137]
Unable to force such a commitment, Teller declined the
position.[138] But his vision soon prevailed. In the first five
years after the end of World War II the U.S. tested a total of five
atomic bombs; from 1951 to 1955, the American government tested
sixty-one nuclear bombs.
------
129. {Scholastic}, January 5, 1948, p. 6.
130. Uhl and Ensign, {GI Guinea Pigs}, p. 43.
131. {Atomic Veterans' Newsletter}, fall 1980, pp. 9-10.
132. {Citizens' Hearings}, pp. 17-19.
133. {Atomic Veterans' Newsletter}, summer 1980, p. 9
134. York, {The Advisors}, pp 19-20.
135. {Announced U.S. Nuclear Tests}, p. 5. Unless otherwise noted, nuclear
bomb blast dates and magnitude figures were derived from this source.
136. York, {The Advisors}, pp. 19-20.
137. Ibid., p 18.
138. Ibid.
------
The H-Bomb
The Soviet Union exploded its first atom bomb on August 29, 1949, in
Siberia.[139] U.S. planes detected the fallout. On September 23,
1949, President Truman announced: "We have evidence that within
recent weeks an atomic explosion occurred in the U.S.S.R." The
President added, "Ever since atomic energy was first realized to man,
the eventual development of this new force by other nations was to be
expected. This probability has always been taken into account by
us."[140]
Edward Teller called fellow atomic scientist Robert Oppenheimer and
asked what to do in response to the news. According to Teller,
Oppenheimer replied: "Keep your shirt on."[141] But for Teller and
others demanding more federal monies to develop weapons, the
revelation that the Soviets had the atom bomb provided a strong
additional argument. The nuclear arms race was on!
A few days later {Time} commented on "a change in mood and tempo.
Military planners were suddenly faced with a whole new timetable of
strategic planning. . . ." Under the subheading "Red Alert," {Time}
declared that "with atom bombs and bombers in the hands of an enemy,
the Army and Navy, as well as the Air Force, took on new and immediate
importance. If the U.S. wanted security, it would have to buy the
full, costly package."[142]
While virtually everyone recognized that a nuclear war would cause
unprecedented casualties and suffering, few people realized that more
insidious peacetime effects were already under way. Routine operation
of the atomic weapons assembly line--exposing an increasing number of
Americans to radiation under normal conditions--was taking its toll.
Ironically, Americans became primary victims of their own country's
nuclear weapons program.
Like other major nuclear decisions before and since, the hydrogen
bomb go-ahead came first. Public comment was welcome later. When it
came to atomic development, the general public was in a position of
reacting to one fait accompli after another. And proliferation of
radiation victims followed as a consequence.
As the new decade began, the White House, Defense Department, and
Atomic Energy Commission were coordinating hush-hush meetings about
the H-bomb--a weapon involving fusion of hydrogen into helium. The
required high temperature of hundreds of millions of degrees would be
possible only from an atomic bomb detonation--so A-bomb capability was
a prerequisite for triggering an H-bomb's "thermonuclear" explosion.
Scientists estimated that if an H-bomb were possible, it could bring
about one thousand times the explosive force of an A-bomb.
Albert Einstein was among those in 1950 who viewed current events
with trepidation. Within the U.S. he warned of "concentration of
tremendous financial power in the hands of the military,
militarization of the youth, close supervision of the loyalty of the
citizens, in particular, of the civil servants by a police force
growing more conspicuous every day. Intimidation of people of
independent political thinking. Indoctrination of the public by
radio, press, school. Growing restriction of the range of public
information under the pressure of military secrecy."[143]
It was in this atmosphere that deliberations over whether to proceed
with H-bomb research reached their climax. That secretive process is
important to understand "because it is one of the relatively few cases
where those who explicitly tried to moderate the nuclear arms race
came within shouting distance of doing so," according to Herbert York,
the first director of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory where much of
the hydrogen bomb R and D subsequently took place. Behind the scenes
there was, in York's words, "a brief, intense, highly secret
debate."[144]
Under federal law a key source of recommendations for the Atomic
Energy Commission was its General Advisory Committee. Called upon by
the AEC to take up the question of prospective H-bomb development, the
Advisory Committee--chaired by J. Robert Oppenheimer and including
such luminaries of nuclear physics as Enrico Fermi and I. I. Rabi--met
in late October 1949. While urging continued efforts to magnify the
power of atomic weaponry, the Advisory Committee urged that the United
States {not} plunge ahead with developing the H-bomb, also known as
the "super bomb."[145]
The panel presented arguments in terms of military strategies,
technical aspects, and optimum use of present nuclear resources,
concluding that the H-bomb was not needed for U.S. national security.
The report also depicted the H-bomb choice as a profound moral issue:
"It is clear that the use of this weapon would bring about the
destruction of innumerable human lives; it is not a weapon which can
be used exclusively for the destruction of material installations of
military or semi-military purposes. Its use therefore carries much
further than the atomic bomb itself the policy of exterminating
civilian populations."[146]
An addendum to the Advisory Committee report, written by James B.
Conant--later president of Harvard University--and signed by five
other committee members including Oppenheimer, underscored the moral
moment of the H-bomb decision: "Let it be clearly realized that this
is a super weapon; it is in a totally different category from an
atomic bomb. . . . Its use would involve a decision to slaughter a
vast number of civilians. We are alarmed as to the possible global
effects of the radioactivity generated by the explosion of a few super
bombs of conceivable magnitude. If super bombs will work at all,
there is no inherent limit on the destructive power that may be
attained with them. Therefore, a super bomb might become a weapon of
genocide."[147]
These and other anti-H-bomb scientists were in effect muzzled from
openly expressing their viewpoints at critical junctures, held back by
security-clearance status. Thus in the crucial months before Truman
proclaimed his decision on H-bomb development, the public was allowed
little information about a decision that could potentially result in
millions of deaths and change the course of human history.
In top-secret circles the debate was fierce. Senator Brien McMahon,
chairman of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, confided in Edward
Teller that the anti-H-bomb Advisory Committee report "just makes me
sick."[148] For their part McMahon and a constellation of atomic
scientists, including Teller and University of California Radiation
Laboratory director Ernest Lawrence, were determined to bring about
development of the H-bomb as soon as possible, believing it to be the
best possible response to Soviet possession of the atom bomb.[149]
Teller went out of his way to tell {Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists} readers at the time: "The scientist is not responsible
for the laws of nature. It is his job to find out how these laws
operate. It is the scientist's job to find the ways in which these
laws can serve the human will. However, it is {not} the scientist's
job to determine whether a hydrogen bomb should be constructed,
whether it should be used, or how it should be used. This
responsibility rests with the American people and with their chosen
representatives."[150] But in the real world--as Teller well knew--
secrecy restrictions prevented the American people from participating
in the deliberative process until the basic decisions had already been
made at governmental top levels, by men very much like himself.
The Pentagon provided important support for the hydrogen bomb.
Defense Secretary Louis Johnson, Military Liaison Committee chairman
Robert LeBaron, and, less strongly, the Joint Chiefs of Staff urged
proceeding with the H-bomb.
Most of the five-member Atomic Energy Commission opposed development
of the H-bomb, at least for the present. But commissioner Lewis
Strauss vehemently argued that the AEC's Advisory Committee had
inappropriately raised issues of morality.
In a letter to President Truman in late November 1949 Strauss urged
approval of a crash program to come up with the H-bomb. Strauss--who
later became chairman of the AEC--warned that the Soviet Union could
be expected to develop the H-bomb. "A government of atheists,"
Strauss added, "is not likely to be dissuaded from producing the
weapon on `moral' grounds."[151] Neither would a government of
Christians and Jews.
On January 31, 1950, President Truman announced he was ordering
full-speed-ahead research and development for the H-bomb.
------
139. Prior to the first Soviet atomic test, in 1948 and 1949, public
speeches by a number of high-ranking American generals had contended
that a preemptive nuclear attack on the Soviet Union's major cities
and industrial centers might be a good idea. (See Fleming, {The Cold
War}, p. 391.)
140. York, {The Advisors}, p. 34.
141. Ibid., p 63.
142. {Time}, October 3, 1949, p. 7.
143. {The H Bomb}, pp. 13-14.
144. York, {The Advisors}, pp. ix, 2.
145. Ibid., pp. 150-159.
146. Ibid., p. 155.
147. Ibid., pp. 156-157.
148. Ibid., p. 60.
149. Ibid., p. 45.
150. Ibid., p. 71.
151. Ibid., p. 58.
------
Atomic Escalation
Without so much as hinting that tests of the H-bomb could vastly
increase harmful radiation fallout, America's mass media applauded the
President's latest nuclear-related action. "No presidential
announcement since Mr. Truman entered the White House seemed, in the
opinion of many observers, to strike such an instant or general chord
of nonpartisan congressional support," {The New York Times}
reported.[152] "Under the circumstances," {Newsweek} added, "it was
the only answer he could give."[153]
Reporting of the AEC Advisory Committee's moral objections to the
H-bomb was lacking. As for the more general matter of scientists'
compunctions about assisting research for a weapon of such mass
annihilation, {Newsweek} did affirm that "many, if not most, of the
nation's atomic scientists had developed `a Hiroshima complex'; they
were appalled by the death and destruction which the A-bomb had
wrought; and they detested the idea of developing an even more
murderous weapon." But, said the magazine, "as patriotic Americans,
they were ready to squelch any moral reservations they might have if
the AEC gave the go-ahead signal."[154]
Dissenting voices, published in some small periodicals, were all but
ignored. "One difficulty created by the cold war is that it makes
everything America does right and unquestionable for Americans and
everything Russia does wrong and indefensible," observed a lengthy
analysis in {The Nation.}[155] Much was being demanded in the name of
{patriotism}, including the setting aside of moral reservations.
{The Nation} perceived that a perverse logic had taken hold of
nuclear policy-making: "The decision to proceed with the construction
of the hydrogen bomb carries the folly of present thinking about
defense close to suicide. If fear is to be man's defense, the fear
must be magnified to the greatest possible extent. That is to say
that the greater the fear the greater the safety, another way of
saying that the greater the danger the greater the safety."[156]
As a corollary in the prevailing atomic syllogisms, horrors of the
past justified more lethal atomic weaponry for the future. Allied
firebombing sieges of Dresden and Tokyo had been recalled as
justifications for the later atomic bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki; these nuclear bombings, and the very existence of an atom
bomb arsenal, in turn, provided rationales for preparing the hydrogen
bomb.[157] In nuclear escalation today's awesomely repugnant
spectacle became tomorrow's diminutive old hat.
The 180 American atmospheric nuclear bomb detonations between 1950
and 1960 carried with them great political power. Senators Millard
Tydings and Glen Taylor were object lessons.
Tydings, an aristocratically mannered parliamentarian from Maryland,
was chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Taylor had been
elected to the Senate from Idaho after a barnstorming career as a
Western vaudevillian earned him the sobriquet "the handsome cowboy
singer." Both men had become vocal foes of unbridled nuclear weapons
development and indiscriminate disloyalty charges against dissenters
from the cold war.[158] And, in 1950, both Tydings and Taylor were up
for reelection.
At the same time Senator Joseph McCarthy was in the midst of
launching to new depths his crusade to depict a wide array of citizens
and organizations as un-American and pro-Communist--a drive that was
to put the word {McCarthyism} into the political lexicon as a synonym
for unsubstantiated, scurrilous smear tactics. Only ten days after
Truman's directive favoring the H-bomb, McCarthy delivered a famous
speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, claiming that there were many
Communists in the U.S. State Department. McCarthy's witch-hunting
star was on the rise, with nuclear weapons enthusiasm and anti-
Communist hysteria dovetailing nicely for him and his backers.[159]
But, in 1950, Senator Millard Tydings unrepentantly advocated
comprehensive disarmament talks to halt and reverse the nuclear arms
race. He was one of McCarthy's prime targets. That autumn, running
for reelection, Tydings went down to defeat in a campaign filled with
charges that he had amiable relations with Communists and was not in
favor of vigorously combating reds.[160]
Glen Taylor, elected to the Senate in 1944, was given to committing
serious breaches of contemporary political etiquette. In 1948 Taylor
ran as the vice-presidential candidate on the Progressive Party's
national ticket headed by Henry Wallace. Taylor's decision to run for
vice-president came after a meeting with Truman, who expressed views
favoring military confrontation with the Soviet Union--an approach
that Taylor found appalling in the atomic age. The Progressive Party
involvement clearly jeopardized Taylor's Senate career, and even his
future ability to support his children and send them through school.
"Well hell, honey, if there's an atomic war, it won't matter none if
the kids are educated or not," Taylor told his wife.[161]
During his unsuccessful campaign for reelection to the Senate in
1950 Taylor was called to account for his staunch opposition to
nuclear boosterism; he was branded disloyal and worse. The sort of
conduct that had made him a target was epitomized in a Senate debate
two days after Truman's announcement that the U.S. was going ahead
with the H-bomb.
"I feel that we have handicaps to overcome," Taylor told the Senate.
"The fact that the evil influence of Dillon, Read & Co. was largely
responsible for shaping our foreign policy and creating mistrust in
many areas of the world, has placed us at a disadvantage."[162]
Taylor had committed a severe indiscretion.[163] He had raised the
issue of corporate control over U.S. nuclear policies.
The leading Wall Street banking firm of Dillon, Read & Co. was, in
fact, well represented in the top echelons of the federal
administration that brought the nuclear industry over the billion-
dollar-a-year mark in 1950. Truman's secretary of defense, James V.
Forrestal, was formerly president of Dillon, Read & Co.; William H.
Draper, a high-ranking executive of the same firm, became
undersecretary of defense.[164]
Truman's appointee as the AEC's research director, Dr. James B.
Fisk, was a former executive of Bell Telephone Laboratories. The AEC
commissioners included Sumner Pike, who had been a Republican member
of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and Lewis Strauss--a rear
admiral and New York banker.[165]
To astute financiers the late 1940s signaled prospects for huge
profits to be made from nuclear investments.[166] Fairchild, General
Electric, and Monsanto Chemical were taking the lead in postwar
corporate nuclear involvements.[167] By the start of 1949 the list of
postwar corporate investors had lengthened to include such major
companies as Du Pont, Westinghouse, Standard Oil Development Co.,
Union Carbide, Kellex Corp., Blaw-Knox, and Dow Chemical.[168] A
cornucopia of government contracts was anticipated.
"ATOM BECOMES BIG BUSINESS AT BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR," blared a 1950
headline in {US. News & World Report}. "All across the country,
research installations and industrial projects are to be built or
expanded as part of the rapid growth of the atom into a big business.
Hydrogen-bomb development will be fitted into this pattern."[169]
There was talk, too, of developing nuclear power for electricity--a
prospect that would evolve into the "Atoms for Peace" program a few
years later. More certain to investors as the 1950s began, however,
was the lure of nuclear weaponry.[170]
------
152. {New York Times}, February 1, 1950.
153. {Newsweek}, February 13, 1950, p. 20.
154. Ibid., p. 19.
155. Raymond Swing, "Prescription for Survival," {Nation}, February 18,
1950, p. 152. For another contemporary critique of Truman's H-bomb
decision, see {Christian Century}, February 15, 1950, p. 198.
156. Swing, "Prescription for Survival," p. 151.
157. For an example of the public arguments used to justify the H-bomb on
grounds of earlier forms of brutality, see the 1950 essay by Robert F.
Bacher, head of the California Institute of Technology physics
department who had been a charter AEC commissioner, in {The H Bomb},
p. 142.
158. See Peter Collier, "Remembering Glen Taylor," {Mother Jones}, April
1977, pp. 43-53. For Senator Tydings' position on disarmament and
ending U.S.-Soviet tensions, see Fleming, {The Cold War}, p. 527.
159. For news coverage of McCarthy and Tydings during this period, see
{Newsweek}, July 31, 1950, pp. 25-29; also, {Newsweek}, March 5,
1951, p. 25.
160. Fleming, {The Cold War}, p 534.
161. Collier, "Remembering Glen Taylor," p. 48.
162. {The H Bomb}, p. 94.
163. Senator Brien McMahon, chairman of the Joint Committee on Atomic
Energy, leapt up to chastise the errant Senator Taylor. "I cannot let
go unchallenged the Senator's assertion that the foreign policy of the
United States has been written by any banking firm be it Dillon, Read
& Co. or any other firm," McMahon declared on the Senate floor.
McMahon added: "We cannot tolerate without speaking up the attack
which I feel has been made by the Senator from Idaho on the sincerity
of our position, and which does not help the cause of peace." ({The H
Bomb}, pp 94-95.) Idaho Senator Taylor had indeed touched a sensitive
nerve.
164. Fleming, {The Cold War}, p. 437.
165. {Business Week}, March 15, 1947, pp. 38, 41.
166. In 1948 the Atomic Energy Commission sought suggestions on how to best
draw in the private sector, setting up the "Industrial Advisory Group"
headed by the president of Detroit Edison and including executives in
such corporations as Standard Oil of Indiana, Gulf, and Babcock &
Wilcox. See {Newsweek}, January 10, 1949, p. 63.
167. {Business Week}, March 29, 1947, p. 22.
168. {Business Week}, January 1, 1949.
169. {U.S. News & World Report}, February 10, 1950, p. 11.
170. The issue of corporate interests in perpetuating atomic development
and the nuclear arms race is commonly viewed as a rather indiscreet
subject--perhaps all the more so because of its critical importance.
Within the nuclear weapons and arms control establishment even those
individuals who have served as voices of moderation prefer not to talk
about it publicly. Herbert F. York, director of the Lawrence Livermore
Laboratory from 1952 to 1958, later served in prominent positions
related to nuclear arms control under Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy,
Johnson, and Carter. York became a fervent and articulate supporter of
disarmament. Yet, in a book he wrote in the mid-1970s, York blamed the
momentum of technology while disregarding corporate influence: "The
possibilities that welled up out of the technological program and the
ideas and proposals put forth by the technologists eventually created a
set of options that was so narrow in the scope of its alternatives and
so strong in its thrust that the political decision makers had no real
independent choice in the matter." ({The Advisors}, p. 11.)
While stating that in his view responsibility for the cold war and
arms race "is widely shared among the major powers of the world," York
wrote "I do believe that the United States has pursued policies which
caused the technological arms race to advance at a substantially
faster pace than was really necessary for America's own national
security." In diagnosing why this has happened, however, York
sanitized the issue so that no one on Wall Street, in nuclear
laboratories, or at government agencies need squirm: "The reasons for
this are not that American leaders have been less sensitive to the
dangers of the arms race than the leaders of other countries, nor that
they are less wise or more aggressive. Rather, the reason is that the
United States is richer and more powerful, and its science and
technology are more dynamic and generate more ideas and inventions of
all kinds, including ever more powerful and exotic means of mass
destruction. In short the root of the problem has not been
maliciousness, but rather a sort of technological exuberance that has
overwhelmed the other factors that go into the making of overall
national policy." ({The Advisors}, p. ix. )
------
[part 4 of 18]
"To What Extent Can We Trust Ourselves?"
With the twentieth century at its midpoint the United States geared
up for a quantum leap in the magnitude and frequency of atomic bomb
tests. Wrapped in the flag, the testing package grew bigger,
costlier, and deadlier.
Even before the first of hundreds of U.S. nuclear test explosions
took place in the 1950s, some nuclear scholars warned about the
biological implications of large-scale atomic blasts. One of the
first was Hans Bethe, a Nobel laureate credited with discovering
energy mechanisms present within the sun--knowledge that proved
integral to H-bomb development.
Bethe had served as director of theoretical physics at the Los
Alamos laboratory during World War II. A professor at Cornell
University, he and eleven other prominent physicists expressed deep
concern about the H-bomb in a public statement issued at a Columbia
University meeting of the American Physical Society, a few days after
Truman's directive approving the new weapon.[171]
In late February 1950 Bethe appeared on an NBC radio round-table
discussion that provoked national controversy. When the moderator
raised the question of radiation dangers from thermonuclear weapons,
Bethe responded: "You are certainly right when you emphasize the
radioactivity. In the H-bomb, neutrons are produced in large numbers.
These neutrons will go into the air; and in the air they will make
radioactive Carbon-14, which is well known to science. This isotope
of carbon has a life of 5,000 years. So if H-bombs are exploded in
some number, then the air will be poisoned by this Carbon-14 for 5,000
years. It may well be that the number of H-bombs will be so large
that this will make life impossible."[172]
Another panelist on the NBC program was Leo Szilard, a University of
Chicago professor of biophysics who had been influential in getting
the U.S. to embark on atomic development for military purposes at the
start of World War II. A physics pioneer whose work on uranium's
neutron emissions had made it possible to sustain chain reactions,
Szilard posed a profound overview for the national radio audience to
ponder. Said Szilard:
In 1939 when we tried to persuade the Government to take up
the development of atomic energy, American public opinion was
undivided on the issue that it is morally wrong and
reprehensible to bomb cities and to kill women and children.
During the war, almost imperceptibly, we started to use giant
gasoline bombs against Japan, killing millions of women and
children; finally we used the A-bomb. I believe there is a
general uneasiness among the scientists. It is easy for them to
agree that we cannot trust Russia, but they also ask themselves:
To what extent can we trust ourselves?[173]
Such talk from impeccably credentialed individuals, if widely
disseminated, could have been a roadblock to the nuclear weapons
testing program. David E. Lilienthal, who had just retired from his
post as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, promptly denounced
the scientists who had appeared on the NBC round-table radio show as
"oracles of annihilation." Lilienthal, speaking at a Town Hall forum
in New York City, warned that the "new cult of doom" was liable to
bring about "hopelessness and helplessness. . . . And hopelessness
and helplessness are the very opposite of what we need. These are
emotions that play right into the hands of destructive Communist
forces."[174]
If physicists of Bethe's and Szilard's stature could be taken to
task for warning the public about perils of radiation, less secure
critics had better watch their step. Those running the nuclear
machinery were anxious to make clear that they would employ derision
and innuendo to fight anyone opposing atomic proliferation. Such
pressure would be felt for decades to follow as scientists attempted
to investigate the full implications of radiation effects on human
health.
Dr. Szilard's unpleasant question, however, would prove prophetic
for many thousands of Americans whose lives were forever altered by
the mushroom clouds that followed his broadcast words: {To what
extent can we trust ourselves?}
------
171. {Science}, February 17, 1950, p. 190.
172. {The H Bomb}, p. 112.
173. Ibid., pp. 118-19
174. {New York Herald Tribune}, March 2,1950; reprinted in {The H Bomb},
pp. 121-122.
------
* * * * * * *
3
Bringing the Bombs Home
In 1951 few people openly objected to the U.S. Government's
announcement that it would begin exploding atomic bombs over Nevada
along with continuing atmospheric tests in the Pacific. The reasons
were couched in national-security terminology. The Korean War was
well under way. Nuclear tests in Nevada would mean a far shorter
supply line from weapons laboratories and materiel depots.[1] And
continental testing meant diversified atomic war game scenarios for
U.S. troops. These logistical and economic advantages all supported
the government's decision to expand the nuclear test program by
bringing it closer to home.
A test site on the mainland, stated the AEC's director of military
application, would serve as "a location where its basic security and
general accessibility cannot be jeopardized by enemy action."[2]
Rejecting alternative spots in New Mexico Utah, and North Carolina,
the AEC's commissioners agreed upon the desert area northwest of Las
Vegas.[3]
The location in southern Nevada seemed almost ideal for the purpose
at hand. The Nevada Test Site would be buffered from access by being
placed within the Tonopah Bombing and Gunnery Range, which had already
claimed over five thousand square miles. On the southern edge of the
site the Air Force had already erected temporary buildings at Camp
Mercury that could be handy in administering the nuclear tests.
Government nuclear planners held a series of meetings to pinpoint
"radiological hazards" involved with exploding atom bombs in Nevada.
A secret conference of more than a score of officials--including
Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller--at Los Alamos on August 1, 1950,
discussed anticipated off-site safety aspects. Concern was raised for
keeping the most densely populated areas out of the heaviest fallout
zones. Official minutes of the meeting acknowledged "the probability
that people will receive perhaps a little more radiation than medical
authorities say is absolutely safe."[4]
America plunged ahead with an intensive atomic bomb test program.
During the 1950s and early 1960s more than two hundred nuclear weapons
sent huge mushroom clouds of radioactivity into the atmosphere from
the Pacific and Nevada. Total explosive force of those bombs,
according to official figures, surpassed ninety thousand kilotons--
ninety megatons--equivalent to more than seven thousand atomic bombs
the size of the one dropped on Hiroshima.[5]
Some people were in the way, living in the wrong places at the wrong
time.
------
1. For description of Los Alamos Laboratory discussion that led up to
establishment of a continental test site, see McPhee, {Curve of Binding
Energy}, pp. 59 60.
2. "Location of Proving Ground for Atomic Weapons," AEC Memo 141/7,
December 13, 1950, p. 2.
3. Meeting on December 12, 1950, the AEC approved recommendations for
proceeding with plans to use the Nevada site, although some staff
memoranda conceded that assumptions of safety for downwind residents
were speculative. "These questions may be answered satisfactorily as
test knowledge increases . . . but they're not satisfactorily answered
at present," said one memo. (Uhl and Ensign, {GI Guinea Pigs}, p. 55.)
For details of test-site selection, see Howard L. Rosenberg, {Atomic
Soldiers} (Boston: Beacon Press, 1980), pp. 26-31.
4. "Meeting: Discussion of Radiological Hazards Associated with a
Continental Test Site for Atomic Bombs," AEC, Los Alamos, New Mexico,
August 1, 1950, pp. 13, 23, 24. Conferees concluded that "a tower-
burst bomb having a yield of 25 kilotons could be detonated without
exceeding the allowed emergency tolerance dose of 6-12 r [roentgens]
outside a 180-degree test area sector 100 miles in radius."
5. {Announced US Nuclear Tests}; "Joint Force Seven, Report WT-933:
Cloud Photography," U.S. Government, January 27, 1958--cited in York,
{The Advisors}, p. 86.
------
Downwind Residents
Routinely, large atomic clouds blew from the Nevada Test Site to
rural communities like Enterprise--a small town, more than one hundred
miles away in southwestern Utah, surrounded by productive farms and
arid grazing country dotted with sagebrush and juniper trees.
The same year nuclear testing began, a boy named Preston Truman was
born near Enterprise. His parents, ranchers and farmers, taught
Preston to ride a horse at the same time he learned to walk. "I can
remember," he would recall, "several times getting up with the rest of
the family and driving out to my father's farm in the moments before
dawn and watching the western sky light up with the flash from the
bombs in Nevada approximately 112 miles away. I remember on occasion
hearing the sound waves come over. I remember later in the mornings
watching on a couple of occasions clouds come over. To a little child
that didn't mean much. The atomic tests were very much a part of our
lives."[6]
When he was in high school, Preston Truman was diagnosed with a form
of cancer called lymphoma. Chemotherapy and other medical treatment
over the next thirteen years cost about $100,000. As was true for all
other downwind residents, the government did not provide a penny. But
Truman was relatively lucky. In 1980 he was in remission from the
usually fatal lymphoma. Out of nine children who were his friends in
the immediate area of Enterprise when he was a child, Truman was the
only one who reached the age of twenty-eight. The rest died of
leukemia or cancer.[7]
The lethal potential of the nuclear tests was not immediately
apparent to Truman and others. Especially in the first years of the
A-tests there was confidence in the government's trustworthiness. "It
was kind of almost a carnival atmosphere in the beginning with the
radio telling us where the clouds were going, following the tests, and
always assuring us there was no danger," Truman recalled. "But that
wasn't the way it continued."[8] The incubation periods, from initial
radiation exposure to the development of consequent diseases, began to
expire.
Always to remain vivid in Preston Truman's memory was a day when,
five years old, he heard that all was not well for the young children
of Enterprise. "I remember one morning going to the store with a
friend of mine to cash in pop bottles, and listening to some people
from the town talk about a boy our age who was dying of leukemia and
listening to the details of the nose bleeds and the suffering he was
going through. And this was a shock. I remember talking with my
friend and wanting to know; we didn't know that little children could
die, we had never seen that."[9]
Forty miles east of Enterprise, in Cedar City, Blaine and Loa
Johnson buried their twelve-year-old daughter in 1965. She died of
leukemia. A total of seven leukemia cases occurred for people within
a two-hundred-yard radius of their home, in the space of a dozen
years.[10]
In the next sizable town, twenty miles farther northeast along
Interstate 15, residents in the devout Mormon community around Parowan
were similarly hard hit. In 1978 Frankie Lou Bentley, whose mother
and stepfather both died of cancer a year apart, listed more than 150
cancer victims in the Parowan-Paragonah-Summit area, which contained
about fourteen hundred people during the nuclear tests in neighboring
Nevada. The cancer was particularly startling because so few people
smoked in the community. "It's amazing that there should be so many
cancer cases in an area as small as this," she told a county
newspaper. "It's to the point now where there's not a person in town
who hasn't lost at least one relative or knows of several people who
have died of cancer."[11]
A coworker with Frankie Lou Bentley at the Bank of Iron County
office in Parowan, Wilma Lamoreaux, watched her fifteen-year-old son
Kenneth die of leukemia in 1960.[12] During a two-year period,
leukemia struck four youngsters in Parowan and Paragonah,[13] an
extremely high rate for towns with a combined population of about one
thousand. Normally, not even one leukemia would have been expected by
medical statisticians.[14]
Eighteen years after her son's death from leukemia, Wilma Lamoreaux
declared, "There's been wrong done. There's no relief in knowing your
son died of negligence." She added: "I don't want to be a rabble-
rouser or anything but I don't want another generation to go through
this. Cancer is such a long, painful, drawn-out death.[15]
In the nearby Escalante Valley cancer caused forty-eight of sixty-
three "natural" deaths in official records since the atomic testing
began--an extraordinarily high ratio.[16]
And there were other worries. One fifth of the male high school
graduates of the 1950s and early 1960s in Cedar City discovered they
were sterile,[17] a particularly grievous condition in a Mormon
culture which places great stress on holy edicts to raise large
families. For those who became parents, there were fears of genetic
damage.
Elizabeth Catalan, who was a teenager while growing up in southwest
Utah during the 1950s, lost her father to leukemia when he was forty-
three, and a sister to complications from an enlarged thyroid. A
surviving sister's daughter remained on her mind: "I watched my
beautiful little niece, Kay's child, cope with the birth defect that
left her with a ganglia that doubled the size of her tongue and wound
around, like a weed, inside her neck and down into her shoulder."[18]
Elizabeth Catalan thought too about girls she grew up with, now women,
coping with aftermaths of miscarriages and physical abnormalities in
their children.
When Beth Catalan became pregnant, the fetus dissolved {in utero}.
"One of the things I always wanted to be was a mother," she told a
citizens' commission inquiry in Washington in 1980, adding that "you
run a Geiger counter over my body and it'll click."[19] She decided
not to take the risk of trying again to give birth to a baby.
Nestled in a picturesque valley, Beth Catalan's hometown of St.
George long enjoyed bounties of the land. Since the days that Brigham
Young, elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,
wintered in St. George, the town seemed to epitomize reasons for
Mormon references to the Utah region as "Zion." Benefiting from a
warm winter climate, proudly sustaining a college, in the middle of
the twentieth century St. George was a tranquil and in many ways
idyllic place to live.
On a sunny day about three decades after nuclear weapons testing
began upwind, a seventy-three-year-old woman named Irma Thomas opened
the front door of a trim house on East Tabernacle Street in St.
George. She had grown accustomed to welcoming out-of-state
researchers carrying notepads and tape recorders and cameras.
Irma Thomas offered the visitors chairs in her living room, next to
the shelves of ceramics she had made with her hands until disquiet
with the gathering tragedies in the neighborhood had compelled her to
put aside the potter's wheel. Few questions were necessary to prompt
her to speak about painful realities: a town, and an entire region,
devastated.
"We're not numbers, we're not statistics, we're human beings," she
said, motioning to her living-room wall covered with family photos, an
acute blend of pain and fury and vulnerability seeming to lace her
words as she spoke. She did not mention the skin cancer across her
back. Sometimes she laughed, an irrepressible zest for life surfacing
through outrage and anguish. She talked about the suffering of her
cancer-ridden husband, of her daughter, whose nervous system was in
the process of falling apart, of her children's blood damage,
stillbirths, hysterectomies, and miscarriages, of her brother,
destined to die of bone cancer less than a year after the
interview.[20]
And she pointed through the living-room walls toward the homes of
neighbors in the residential area. She had compiled a list of
thirty-one cancer victims who lived in the houses within a block
radius;[21] smoking was rare in the heavily Mormon community.
"They couldn't pay anyone for the loss of a child. I hope they
realize that," she said, hands folded in her lap. "And the people of
my generation are just dropping by the wayside."[22]
Punctuated by her special kind of laughter, and silences, eyes often
brimming with tears, Irma Thomas shared her perceptions about living
in a town A-bombed by its own government:
We accepted all this. It was our government and we accepted
it. . . . We didn't connect it to people's cancer at first. It
takes a while. . . . I've been at work on this for two years.
I was concerned about it many years before that. The people of
St. George, after the 1953 blast, some of the people got a
little nervous . . . People had to have cars washed down . . .
The AEC guys came by to soothe all the ruffled feathers. . . .
And yet so many people died from that. You'd have to be blind,
deaf, and dumb not to see it. And it's pretty horrendous....
I work to raise my children. And later I find out this has
happened, it just infuriates me so I can hardly stand it. I get
so upset and frustrated, I can hardly stand it . . . The
victims are outraged. . . . Our earth is getting so filled with
radioactive waste. And it doesn't go away. . . .
One of my favorite sayings, "Oh too much talk, hit 'em on the
head with a rock." . . . I'm going to keep pounding, here and
there and everywhere, till somebody hears me. . . . All I can
do is right here, in this house. All I can do is do what I can,
the way I can. . . . Look how long we suffered, for thirty
years. Nobody makes a peep. When the congressional hearings
were happening last year, I told them it looks like a big show
for the politicians. . . . At the hearings it came out, about
the government trying to confuse us with "fission" and "fusion"
[a secret directive from President Dwight Eisenhower]. That big
old Army president we had. I'd like to dig him up and hit him
in the head.[23]
By 1980 recent national publicity had often left the impression that
St. George and nearby towns were the main recipients of radioactive
clouds from Nevada bomb blasts. But test fallout was not limited to
the southern part of Utah. More than two hundred miles northeast of
St. George, between the cities of Provo and Salt Lake City, is the
town of Pleasant Grove, populated by several thousand people.
Affidavits filed in federal court in 1980 cited ten leukemia deaths
among people living in Pleasant Grove during the 1960s; seven of
those leukemia fatalities were children.[24]
Still farther away from the Nevada Test Site, in the Uinta Mountains
of northeast Utah some four hundred miles from where the atom bombs
exploded aboveground, severe impacts have been reported as well. The
Uinta mountain range tended to have a "sweeping effect," bringing down
fallout on grasslands in the dairy country below the Uinta peaks. In
the summer of 1980 a U.S. District Court suit charged that the
government should be held liable for radioactive contamination of milk
in the area and resulting cancer.[25]
One of the plaintiffs, David L. Timothy, grew up on a dairy farm in
the mountainous region of northeastern Utah. When he was nineteen
cancer was discovered in his thyroid--where radioactive iodine 131
from fallout is known to lodge. In 1981, after undergoing thyroid
surgery eight times, Timothy angrily demanded to know "why the hottest
spot in the state has been ignored by not only the officials but the
news media too."[26]
Rose Mackelprang also wondered about lack of attention to the town
of Fredonia in northern Arizona, about two hundred miles from the
nuclear test site. National journalists visiting St. George across
the Utah border had not bothered to report what happened to Fredonia's
residents in the wake of atomic fallout that regularly passed over
their town.
Soft-spoken, demure, devoted to the Mormon Church, Rose Mackelprang
was willing to talk about what she could never forget. "My husband
and I moved to Fredonia in 1948. It's just a little town, and we have
a very happy atmosphere down there. We did rather, anyway. They
raise their own gardens and most of 'em have their own cows, a lot of
them do, and they have gardens and bottle their own food, put it up,
store it, that's just the life of a small community."[27] Rose
Mackelprang's husband, Gayneld, became a teacher in the public schools
of Fredonia, where the lumber industry was assuming economic
importance alongside farming and livestock.
"At that time, when they started the testing in Nevada, it'd be at
dawn when the tests would go off and we could see this big light and
then the ground would shake, it'd billow up you could see the big
mushroom cloud go way up and it was really quite exciting, it was
different, we didn't really know that much about it. As far as we
knew, why, it was really going to help us out, it was really something
that our government was doing and it would be for our own good. We
trusted the government, we figured that it was necessary because,
after all, the government does look after us, and they're over the
people and they will take care of anything that needs to be taken care
of to see that it's healthy, or otherwise . . . So we didn't worry
about it."[28]
In 1960 the population of Fredonia was 643. By 1965 four had passed
away from leukemia--a truck driver, who died at age forty-eight; a
fourteen-year-old girl; a lumber crane operator, thirty-six; and
Gayneld Mackelprang, by that time forty-three years old and
superintendent of the Fredonia Public Schools. A secret memorandum by
the U.S. Public Health Service's leukemia unit director, Dr. Clark W.
Heath, Jr., noted, "This number of cases is approximately 20 times
greater than expected."[29] In the entire previous decade 1950 to
1960 no cases of leukemia had been reported among Fredonia residents.
The memo, dated August 4, 1966, and sent to the head of the federal
agency's Communicable Disease Center, was marked "FOR ADMINISTRATIVE
USE ONLY, NOT FOR PUBLICATION."[30]
Soon after learning it was leukemia, Gayneld Mackelprang was dead.
His widow recalled, "The doctors said it was a lot farther advanced
than they ever guessed. It was a shock, I can tell you. We hardly
knew what to do, no plans, no nothing. I had six children home, and I
was expecting my seventh in six weeks."[31]
Cancer became commonplace in Fredonia. Rose Mackelprang ticked off
the names of the next towns north along Highway 89--Kanab, Orderville,
Glendale--where cancer and leukemia had appeared. "Some of them have
died with leukemia, we have a lot of cancer, and it's not the end of
it. It's still going on." Federal agencies continued to deny
responsibility. "One thing that really upsets me," she added, "is
that instead of telling us it was dangerous, they have denied it all
the time, they've said they're not at fault."[32]
------
6. {Citizens' Hearings}, pp. 8-9.
7. Preston Truman, interviews, February 1980, December 1980, June 1981.
8. {Citizens' Hearings}, pp. 8-9.
9. Ibid.
10. {The Tribune} (Salt Lake), Associated Press, November 21, 1978; Loa
Johnson, interview, June 1981.
11. {Color Country Spectrum} (Utah), December 22, 1978.
12. Ibid.
13. {The Tribune} (Salt Lake), Associated Press, November 21, 1978.
14. Clark W. Heath, Jr., M.D., Chief, "Subject: Leukemia in Fredonia,
Arizona," U.S. Public Health Service Memo, Leukemia Unit, Epidemiology
Branch, August 4, 1966.
15. {Color Country Spectrum}, December 22, 1978.
16. Samuel H. Day, Jr., "Rebellion in the Rockies," {Progressive},
February 1981, p. 9.
17. Ibid.
18. {Los Angeles Times}, April 11, 1980.
19. {Citizens' Hearings}, p. 6.
20. Irma Thomas, interview, February 1980.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. {The Tribune} (Salt Lake), May 17, 1980.
25. {The Tribune} (Salt Lake), August 13, 1980.
26. David Timothy, interview, January 1981.
27. Rose Mackelprang, speech to National Conference for a Comprehensive
Test Ban, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, December 12, 1980.
28. Ibid.
29. Heath, "Subject: Leukemia," August 4, 1966.
30. Ibid.
31. Rose Mackelprang speech.
32. Ibid.
------
AEC Denials
In the 1950s few Americans knew of the health risks associated with
bomb fallout. The test program had been cast in a patriotic light by
the official releases that the press circulated. For those who feared
ill effects from radiation, government assurances were profuse. Year
after year media conveyed U.S. Atomic Energy Commission announcements
to downwind residents: "There is no danger."[33]
But sheep, thousands of them, abruptly sickened and died. Country
dwellers noticed that wildlife, from deer to birds, thinned from
expansive rangelands regularly dusted with fallout from the Nevada
Test Site upwind. And in one small community after another, people
died from diseases rarely seen there before: leukemia, lymphoma,
acute thyroid damage, many forms of cancer.
"My father and I were both morticians, and when these cancer cases
started coming in I had to go into my books to study how to do the
embalming, cancers were so rare," remembered Elmer Pickett, a lifelong
resident of St. George, Utah. "In '56 and '57 all of a sudden they
were coming in all the time. By 1960 it was a regular flood."[34]
As latency periods came due, towns like St. George began to reap a
grim harvest sown by the atomic whirlwinds. They were mostly
populated by Mormons, devoutly obeying their Church's instructions not
to smoke tobacco or drink alcohol. Cancer had never been a noticeable
problem before. But, as the 1950s wore on, and for decades afterward,
the ravaging effects came like a pestilence in serial form: the
leukemias, usually quickest to result from radiation exposure, came
first; numerous types of cancer, emerging in body organs or in bones,
tended to arrive later.
Despite its claims that neither the detonations nor fallout were
harmful, the Atomic Energy Commission routinely waited until the winds
were blowing in the "right" direction.[35] That meant away from big
cities like Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Occasionally at the last
minute shifting breezes dumped fallout on large metropolitan areas--
Las Vegas was sprinkled with radioactivity in 1955, for example, and
three years later fallout clouds dropped on Los Angeles. But for the
most part America's continental nuclear tests went according to plan.
The most deadly concentrations of fallout came down in rural areas of
Nevada, Utah, and northern Arizona.
After southern Utah sheepherders lost massive numbers of their
livestock, they unsuccessfully brought suit against the federal
government in 1955. In court the government response was that "a
combination of factors including malnutrition, poor management, and
adverse weather conditions" led to the animals' deaths.[36] (Two
decades later complaints near the Three Mile Island nuclear power
plant in Pennsylvania, the Rocky Flats weapons production facility in
Colorado, and other atomic installations would meet similar
explanations.) Internal memos to the contrary from AEC researchers
were suppressed. Sworn statements by sheepherders, who testified such
epidemics among their livestock had never happened until the mushroom
clouds rose upwind, were discounted.
However, the sheep were a kind of early-warning system for what was
to follow. Starting in the mid-1950s, {leukemia} became a household
word in Utah towns like St. George and Enterprise and Parowan; the
same held true for communities like Tonopah in Nevada, Fredonia in
Arizona. Children were especially vulnerable.
As early as 1959 a study disclosed higher radioactive strontium 90
levels in young children living downwind of the atomic tests.[37] In
1965 another suppressed study--this one by U.S. Public Health Service
researcher Dr. Edward Weiss--correlated radioactive fallout with an
inordinately high leukemia rate among downwind Utah residents.
Weiss's report concluded: "An examination of leukemia death records
in southwestern Utah" during the years of heavy fallout "shows an
apparently excessive number of deaths."[38]
A joint AEC-White House meeting about the Weiss report took place in
early September 1965; AEC representatives criticized the study. A
week later the AEC's assistant general manager told AEC commissioners
that researching such topics as downwind leukemia rates would "pose
potential problems to the commission: adverse public relations,
lawsuits and jeopardizing the programs of the Nevada Test Site."[39]
Although atmospheric testing had been banned by then, underground
tests were still releasing radioactivity into the air. And the AEC
was gearing up for the civilian nuclear power program, predicated on
the contention that low levels of officially permitted radiation were
harmless.
The White House shelved the Weiss report in 1965, and blocked any
follow-up research.[40] In fact there were many nuclear-testing-
related documents and AEC meeting minutes that remained secret until
1979, when they were made public by journalists or Senator Edward
Kennedy.[41] For the Weiss study that meant staying locked up in
federal vaults for a full thirteen years.[42]
In 1979, however, University of Utah epidemiology director Dr.
Joseph L. Lyon independently confirmed the validity of the Weiss
report. In an article published in the {New England Journal of
Medicine}, Dr. Lyon and associates documented that children growing up
in southern Utah during the aboveground atomic weapons tests suffered
a leukemia rate two and a half times higher than for children before
the testing began and after it ended.[43]
In early 1981 results of the federal executive branch's Interagency
Radiation Research Committee inquiry were made public--stating that a
profusion of childhood cancer in southern Utah "remains unexplained on
grounds other than possible fallout exposure."[44]
Health risks of living downwind from the nuclear tests were shared
by Indians--particularly Duckwater Shoshones north of the test site,
and Southern Paiutes to the east. Poor medical record-keeping has
handicapped efforts to assess fallout effects. But in 1981 Paiute
Tribe of Utah vice-chair Elvis F. Wall blamed the radiation for adding
to health woes among tribe members.[45]
Through it all, during three decades that started with the first
mushroom clouds over Nevada in 1951, the U.S. Government nuclear
weapons testing spokespeople continued to proudly observe that federal
authorities had never lost a lawsuit based on radioactive
fallout.[46] With about a thousand plaintiffs seeking damages in
federal court as the 1970s ended, U.S. Justice Department attorneys
were anxious to sustain their "perfect record" of eluding judicial
pronouncements of atomic fallout culpability.
In 1979 plaintiffs accused the federal government of failing to
inform area residents that fallout from the tests could cause cancer.
Federal statements filed in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City
denied the charges, stating that citizens were told "there was some
risk associated with exposure to radioactive fallout" during the
1950s.[47]
Those denials infuriated citizens, who produced numerous written
proclamations distributed by the federal government throughout the
1950s, claiming the radioactive fallout posed no danger. One widely
posted statement, dated January 1951 and signed by AEC project manager
Ralph P. Johnson, read: "Health and safety authorities have
determined that no danger from or as a result of AEC activities may be
expected . . . All necessary precautions, including radiological
surveys and patrolling of the surrounding territory, will be
undertaken to insure that safety conditions are maintained."[48]
In March 1957 the AEC distributed a booklet titled "Atomic Tests in
Nevada" among downwind residents. "You people who live near Nevada
Test Site are in a very real sense active participants in the Nation's
atomic test program," the federal pamphlet said. "You have been close
observers of tests which have contributed greatly to building the
defenses of our country and of the free world. . . . Every test
detonation in Nevada is carefully evaluated as to your safety before
it is included in a schedule. Every phase of the operation is
likewise studied from the safety viewpoint." Readers were assured
that after six full years of open-air nuclear tests upwind, "all such
findings have confirmed that Nevada test fallout has not caused
illness or injured the health of anyone living near the test
site."[49]
And, in an effort to keep the local citizenry from looking too
closely, the AEC included in its booklet a drawing of an unshorn,
bowlegged cowboy raising his eyebrows at a clicking meter in his hand.
"Many persons in Nevada, Utah Arizona, and nearby California have
Geiger counters these days," the pamphlet counseled. "We can expect
many reports that `Geiger counters were going crazy here today.'
Reports like this may worry people unnecessarily. Don't let them
bother you."[50]
Few residents of Utah, or Nevada, or northern Arizona were surprised
by the conclusions of a 1980 report issued by the U.S. House of
Representatives Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations: "The
Government's program for monitoring the health effects of the tests
was inadequate and, more disturbingly, all evidence suggesting that
radiation was having harmful effects, be it on the sheep or the
people, was not only disregarded but actually suppressed."[51]
------
33. Jack Willis and Saul Landau, {Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang} (New
York: New Time Films, 1979), transcript p. 1.
34. {Life}, June 1980, p. 36.
35. This policy was reflected in numerous AEC deliberations and decisions;
for example, commissioners' meetings of March 1 and March 14, 1955.
36. {Life}, June 1980, p. 38.
37. {Washington Post}, April 14, 1979.
38. U.S. Congress, House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce,
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, and Senate, Labor and
Human Resources Committee, Health and Scientific Research Subcommittee,
and the Committee on the Judiciary, {Health Effects of Low-Level
Radiation}, 96th Cong., 1st sess. Serial No. 96-42, April 19, 1979,
Vol. 2, p. 2195 (hereafter cited as {Health Effects of Low-Level
Radiation}).
39. {Washington Post}, April 14, 1979.
40. {Deseret News}, February 27, 1979; {Washington Post}, April 14, 1979.
41. See {Health Effects of Low-Level Radiation}, Vols. 1 and 2.
42. {Washington Post}, April 14, 1979.
43. Joseph L. Lyon, et al., "Childhood Leukemias Associated with Fallout
from Nuclear Testing," {New England Journal of Medicine}, February 22,
1979, pp. 397-402. Lyons's study has been criticized by nuclear
proponents because in spite of the increase in leukemia rate among
children in Utah, the rate was still below the U.S. average. This
attitude seems to assume that every area of the U.S. "deserves" to be
as polluted as the East Coast, where synergistic effects of multiple
carcinogens and wash-out of radioactive chemicals from contaminated
clouds compound the health problems.
44. {The Oregonian}, Associated Press, January 1, 1981.
45. Elvis F. Wall, vice-chairperson, Interim Tribal Council, Paiute Indian
Tribe of Utah, Cedar City, Utah, printed statement, undated,
distributed May 1981.
46. {Deseret News}, February 15, 1979.
47. {The Tribune} (Salt Lake), December 17, 1979.
48. "WARNING," sign dated January 1951, obtained from Citizens' Call
organization in Utah.
49. AEC, {Atomic Tests in Nevada}, March 1957, pp. 2, 4, 15.
50. Ibid., p. 23.
51. U.S. Congress, House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce,
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, {The Forgotten Guinea
Pigs}, 96th Cong., 2nd sess., Committee Print 96-1FC 53, August 1980,
p. 37.
------
Nevada Veterans
In early January 1951 President Truman approved the first series of
Nevada atomic tests scheduled to begin later that month. When the
nuclear testing started there, little information--let alone
consultation--had been accorded residents in the surrounding region.
The first series of nuclear tests within North America was labeled
"Operation Ranger." Over a period of ten days beginning January 27,
1951, five air-dropped A-bombs exploded over the Nevada Test Site,
ranging from one to twenty-two kilotons. Sixty-five miles away, Las
Vegas took the tests in stride; the only ostensible negative effects
were a couple of broken windows resulting from an eight-kiloton blast
code-named Baker-2.[52]
As with the Pacific test program, no plans were incorporated to
evaluate the impact of radiation on human beings. Rather, the Army
chose to evaluate servicemen's psychological reactions to
participating in atomic bomb tests. The plan got under way in the
summer of 1951, financed by the Department of Defense and administered
by George Washington University, under the heading of the "Human
Resources Research Office."[53] The Pentagon also entered into a
similar arrangement with the Operations Research Office of Johns
Hopkins University.
When soldiers arrived at Camp Desert Rock to participate in
"Operation Buster-Jangle" in autumn 1951, they knew little about what
they were in for.
Introduction to the bare facilities at the Nevada Test Site came
partly from an "Information and Guide" booklet distributed to incoming
GIs. "The officers and men of this operation share with you the hope
that your visit to Camp Desert Rock will prove an informative and
revealing experience which you will always remember," read a greeting
signed by U.S. Army Major General W. B. Kean.[54] Every page bore the
inscription "RESTRICTED," and the booklet was replete with injunctions
against talking too much.
"To assist in maintaining the security of Exercise Desert Rock it is
desired that you maintain secrecy discipline regarding classified
information observed here. Everyone will want to know what you have
seen--officials, friends, {and the enemy.}"[55]
The Army booklet handed to the first nuclear soldiers at the Nevada
Test Site did not discuss atomic bomb radiation hazards. It did
discuss possible hazards from indigenous reptiles and poisonous
insects.[56]
Scenarios for tactical war games, assuming an enemy invasion
sweeping inland from the West Coast, postulated that "the decision has
been made to employ an atomic weapon to effect maximum destruction of
the enemy." The maneuvers, while testing numerous facets of
infantrymen's responses to atomic weaponry exploding in their midst,
were depicted as realistic dry runs for future combat situations.[57]
"Indoctrination in essential physical protective measures under
simulated combat conditions, and observation of the psychological
effects of an atomic explosion are reasons for this desired
participation," said a preparatory memorandum from the Pentagon's
Military Liaison Committee to the AEC chairman. Added the Defense
Department panel: "The psychological implications of atomic weapons
used close to our front lines in support of ground operations are
unknown."[58] The AEC ordered strict exclusion of the media during
the forthcoming autumn nuclear tests in Nevada.[59]
Like Army buddies with him in the engineers A Company and other
servicemen who arrived at the Nevada Test Site that October of 1951,
twenty-two-year-old private William Bires did not know that military
authorities were placing major importance on gauging mental and
emotional impacts of close-range atomic blasts on foot soldiers like
himself.[60]
Sleeping on the desert ground got very cold in October and November.
("We didn't even have decent sleeping bags. We froze our asses
off.")[61] Of far more lasting significance was the actual experience
of seeing half-a-dozen nuclear bomb detonations, ranging up to a
thirty-one-kiloton blast code-named Easy.
Bires participated in the series of atomic tests over a period of a
few weeks, with the largest nuclear explosions coming from bombs
dropped by aircraft. Several thousand men watched from about seven
miles away as fierce atomic light slashed across the desert; some
were marched to within half a mile of ground zero. After the
indescribably vivid bright flash Bires took note of "bizarre effects
of the bombs"--weird designs of permanent shadows left in the atomic
wake, charred into test range buildings, vehicles, gun emplacements.
Animals situated in calibrated proximities to the A-blasts were singed
and sometimes pathetic. "I can still see this damn sheep with its
rump burnt," Bires commented three decades later.[62]
The Pentagon eagerly assessed behavior of GIs as they responded to
orders soon after the half-dozen nuclear detonations, which totaled
seventy-two kilotons. The more intimate, and more lasting,
consequences apparently were not of great concern to the military
brass.
"I was then, and I still am," William Bires said in 1981, "living
with the firsthand knowledge that we do indeed have within our power
the ability to destroy ourselves. Most people have heard this, but
have not been able to observe firsthand the effects of those terrible
weapons."[63]
When he filed the first in a series of claim statements with the
Veterans Administration in 1978, Bires cited the psychological jolts
left by his hitch at the Nevada nuclear tests. Recurrent fits of
depression, the tenacious imagery of atomic weapons exploding close
by, and an acutely painful spinal affliction came to plague him.[64]
Less than five months after the first troop maneuvers in the shadow
of a mushroom cloud over Nevada, the U.S. military was pushing for
more daring escapades for GIs. The distance of seven miles from
nuclear blasts seemed too remote, and tame, to high-ranking occupants
of Pentagon offices along the banks of the Potomac River. In the
future, declared Air Force Brigadier General A. R. Luedecke, a less
cautious policy would be appropriate. In a secret letter to the AEC
in early 1952 he attributed "unfavorable psychological effects" among
soldiers "to the tactically unrealistic distance of seven miles to
which all participating troops were required to withdraw for the
detonation."[65]
The Pentagon now suggested that soldiers be stationed a little less
than four miles from the exploding nuclear weapons in subsequent
tests. The AEC's director of biology and medicine, Dr. Shields
Warren, didn't like the sound of it. "The explosion is experimental
in type, and its yield cannot be predicted with accuracy," he warned.
"Deviations from established safety practices would result . . . in
larger numbers and more serious casualties the closer the troops were
to the point of detonation."[66]
Despite such in-house warnings from its own staff experts the AEC
capitulated to the Pentagon plan. Commission chairman Gordon Dean
promised the Department of Defense that the AEC "would enter no
objection to stationing the troops at not less than 7,000 yards from
ground zero."[67] All discussions leading to the decision that would
affect thousands of soldiers were conducted in secrecy. The Pentagon
had exercised its unwritten dominance over the AEC.
In Nevada nearly eight thousand Army, Navy, Marine, and Air Force
personnel were in the early stages of "Operation Tumbler-Snapper"--
involving eight nuclear weapons dropped from airplanes or perched on
towers, with total explosive force of over one hundred kilotons.
During the largest blast of the series--a thirty-one-kiloton bomb
air-dropped on April 22, 1952--selected reporters and television crews
were allowed for the first time to record an A-bomb shot in
progress.[68] At that test, and again the following month, soldiers
were less than four miles from the explosions, often moving into the
central blast area within two hours.
Back in Washington, according to classified AEC minutes, Commission
chairman Gordon Dean "commented that a popular article on fall-out to
reduce the possibility of public anxiety resulting from lack of
information might be helpful."[69]
The kind of publicity the AEC sought did not come from Army veterans
like James W. Yeatts, whose description of Operation Tumbler-Snapper
would calm no public fears--neither at the time, nor twenty-eight
years later, when Yeatts issued the following statement from his home
in Keeling, Virginia:
At the test site we had no protective clothing or equipment,
not even a gas mask. When the bomb was detonated, we had our
backs to the blast, kneeling with our hands over our eyes and
our eyes closed. The flash was so bright we could see the bones
in our hands. Then we turned to see the fire ball form. The
shock wave hit us and knocked me backward. The dust was so
thick that we could not see anything. After the dust settled we
marched toward Ground Zero until the radiation got too hot. We
then turned back and had a Geiger counter check for radiation.
By the time we arrived back at Camp Desert Rock, most of us
had severe headaches and were nauseated. We were told to lie
down--that it would go away.
Two days later, back at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, I was told
to turn the uniform that I wore in the tests in to the stock
room. It was put in a rubber bag. Nothing was said about how
much radiation we had received.[70]
Two months later Yeatts began having serious health problems--
"rectal abscesses, headaches, nausea and severe back pains," which
persisted into the 1960s. Ten years after his participation in the
atomic testing Yeatts lost all his teeth. "They became so loose, I
could pull them with no pain. About a year later I began having
breathing problems." By the late 1970s Yeatts was unable to work. In
1980 his weight had declined to 103 pounds. "I can only walk a few
steps. I am now losing control of my bowels and urine."[71]
As far as the family was concerned, the aftermath of Operation
Tumbler-Snapper did not end with James Yeatts. "My son was born in
1969, with many birth defects--the sutures in his head were grown
together, a severe heart problem, an imperforate anus, he had only one
kidney and an obstruction in the urinary tract. He had to have a
colostomy at one day old. At three months old he had a `Pots
procedure' operation on his heart. He had a ureterostomy at six
months, which will be permanent. A pull through was done on his
rectum at 2 years old. At the age of 5 he had open heart surgery. He
cannot attend school and still suffers from these problems. . . ."[72]
Ultimately Yeatts asked physicians at the M.C.V. Hospital in
Richmond, Virginia, "if radiation exposure I had could cause my son's
defects. The doctors asked me why I did not tell them about the
radiation exposure when my son was born. They said my son would have
to have close check-ups for other problems that could come up."[73]
The Veterans Administration denied Yeatts any service-connected
benefits. "It is not enough for the Government to use me for a guinea
pig," he said, "but to cause something to children years later is more
than I can take."[74]
------
52. Rosenberg, {Atomic Soldiers}, p. 34.
53. For detailed account of role played by Human Resources Research Office
in the U.S. nuclear testing program, see Rosenberg, {Atomic Soldiers}.
54. U.S. Army, "Exercise Desert Rock Information and Guide," 1951, p. 1.
55. Ibid., p. 8.
56. Ibid., p. 19.
57. Ibid., pp. 9-11.
58. Military Liaison Committee Memorandum MLC 31.4, July 16, 1951, pp. 1, 2.
59. AEC memo by General Manager M. W. Boyer, September 20, 1951.
60. William Bires, interview, March 1981.
61. Ibid.
62. Ibid.
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid.
65. USAF Brigadier General A. R. Luedecke to Director, AEC Division of
Military Application, March 7, 1952.
66. Shields Warren, M.D., "Draft Staff Paper on Troop Participation in
Operation Tumbler-Snapper," AEC memo, March 25, 1952.
67. Gordon Dean to Brigadier General H. B. Loper, April 2, 1952.
68. Rosenberg, {Atomic Soldiers}, p. 58.
69. AEC Commissioners Meeting Minutes, May 14, 1952.
70. {Atomic Veterans' Newsletter}, summer 1980, p. 12.
71. Ibid.
72. Ibid.
73. Ibid., pp. 12-13.
74. Ibid., p. 14.
------
Operation Upshot-Knothole
As the U.S. Government prepared for "Operation Upshot-Knothole,"
slated for the spring and summer of 1953, civilian restraints over
nuclear testing continued to erode. In a meeting between the AEC and
the Department of Defense it was established that "in the forthcoming
tests the usual limits of physical exposure to weapons effects would
probably be exceeded." The AEC commissioners then acquiesced to a
suggestion "that responsibility for the physical safety of the troops
participating in the exercise be delegated to the DOD [Department of
Defense] and that the DOD be informed of the possibility that
exceeding the normal limits of exposure to radiation or pressure might
endanger the participating personnel."[75]
Servicemen at the atomic tests were thus left to the tender mercies
of the Department of Defense. Official notes depicted AEC chairman
Gordon Dean's view that "since the DOD apparently considered it
necessary to conduct the exercises in this manner, the AEC was not in
a position to recommend that the normal limits [of radiation exposure
and blast pressure] be observed."[76] For good measure, the AEC
commissioners endorsed plans for a joint announcement that the Defense
Department would be taking responsibility for the safety of troops
during the forthcoming series of atom bomb tests in Nevada.[77]
As the newly elected President, Dwight Eisenhower, prepared to
unveil his "Atoms for Peace" program, promoting use of nuclear energy
for electric power, the AEC and Pentagon put finishing touches on
Operation Upshot-Knothole. During the spring and early summer of 1953
a total of eleven nuclear test shots sent mushroom clouds over the
Nevada desert, concluding with a sixty-one-kiloton explosion code-
named Climax. In less than three months the Nevada blasts had
unleashed a cumulative force of over 250 kilotons--about twenty times
the power of the atom bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.
About seventeen thousand military personnel participated in Upshot-
Knothole. Routinely thousands were in trenches within two miles of
ground zero as a nuclear bomb exploded; obeying orders, they moved
toward the blast center inside of an hour after detonation in mock
attack. The exercises even included, for the first time, direct
charges immediately after detonation. The Pentagon had nearly doubled
the AEC's prior theoretical limit for radiation exposure of the
servicemen, raising it to six roentgens.[78]
Meanwhile A-test overseers had been experimenting with nonhuman
subjects as well--sheep, rabbits, and pigs confined at varying
distances from the blast site. Scores of porkers were clothed with
specially fitted "uniforms" made out of standard Army material, to
test for protection of their skin. One of the more bizarre
expenditures came when one set of pigs had to be refitted with new
uniforms after they outgrew their originals while waiting for the
weather to break.[79]
Former Army sergeant Cecil G. Dunn, an Operation Upshot-Knothole
veteran, recounted from his home in Pensacola, Florida, "After the
blast, they marched us to ground zero. I will never forget the smell
after that shot. I have no idea how much radiation was there. I know
of no film badges. I don't remember seeing any of the men wearing
any. I know I never had one." Recalling subsequent chronic headaches
lasting years, followed by nosebleeds, a nervous breakdown, festering
spots on his legs, and dizzy spells, Dunn said: "I feel like I am
drunk all the time, but I don't drink. I tire very easily now. . . .
All I have ever asked is to live like other people. But I cannot help
blaming the Government for subjecting me to nuclear testing without
warning me of the potential consequences and I will always wonder why
it happened."[80]
Outside the borders of the Nevada Test Site fallout clouds
intensified as Operation Upshot-Knothole progressed. On April 25,
1953, four and half hours after a forty-three-kiloton[81] blast named
Simon, a spot outside the Nevada Test Site boundaries registered 460
milliroentgens per hour along Route 93--nineteen miles north of the
Nevada town of Glendale. The potential dose was far in excess of the
current standards set by governmental agencies. Caught off guard, the
federal government hastily set up roadblocks. A report by the U.S.
Public Health Service estimated about fourteen hundred people were
living in the immediate fallout area. Starting nine hours after the
Simon explosion, for 150 minutes, traffic was stopped on major roads;
out of some 250 vehicles stopped and checked for radiation, 40 were
judged to require decontamination. A Greyhound bus, bound for Las
Vegas with 30 passengers, gave off readings of 250 milliroentgens
outside, 160 milliroentgens inside.[82]
Three hours after the blast the tiny town of Riverdale registered
readings of sixteen milliroentgens an hour.[83] An Armed Forces
Special Weapons Project report, which was to remain secret for
twenty-five years, commented: "The amount of fallout was expected to
be much larger than usual. However, due to the fact that no populated
communities were expected to be in its path, the decision was made to
fire on schedule."[84] But the Simon fallout cloud also passed over
Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and
Pennsylvania before it encountered a tumultuous thunderstorm over
upstate New York, southern Vermont, and parts of western
Massachusetts. It was one of the heaviest flash storms in memory,
bringing down torrents of rain.[85]
Two days after the Simon explosion a group of students at the
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York--twenty-three
hundred miles from the blast--noticed Geiger counters at their school
radiochemistry lab were registering high readings. They went outside
to discover that the previous evening's rain had brought down large
amounts of fallout. Radiochemistry Professor Herbert Clark called the
AEC, where an official first thought Clark was joking.[86]
But students systematically measured the area for radiation. Some
samples from rain puddles showed 270,000 times more radioactivity than
usually found in drinking water. Tests from city reservoir water
showed levels 2,630 times higher than normal. Professor Clark and the
Rensselaer students also discovered another problem. Radioactive
fallout clung to the roof and walls despite hours of scrubbing; the
surface radioactivity in Troy/Albany was comparable to measurements
taken two hundred to five hundred miles from the point of the Simon
detonation in Nevada.[87] In the mid-sixties that contamination would
lead to a bitter controversy over health damage in the wake of bomb
testing.
------
75. AEC Commissioners Meeting Minutes, December 23, 1952.
76. Ibid.
77. Ibid.
78. Rosenberg, {Atomic Soldiers}, p. 57.
79. Ibid., pp. 61-63.
80. {Atomic Veterans' Newsletter}, spring 1980, p. 3.
81. In contrast to a continued official listing of forty-three kilotons,
documents declassified in the late 1970s refer to the Simon test as a
51.5-kiloton blast. ({The Tribune} [Salt Lake], New York Times News
Service, August 12, 1979.)
82. {The Tribune} (Salt Lake), New York Times News Service, August 12, 1979.
83. Ibid.
84. Ibid.
85. Ernest Sternglass, {Secret Fallout} (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981),
pp. 1-5. See also articles by Herbert M. Clark in {Science}, May 7,
1954, pp. 619-622, and by Clark, et al., in {Journal American Water
Works Association}, November 1954, pp. 1101-1111.
86. Ibid.
87. Ibid.
------
"Dirty Harry"
Some downwind residents became apprehensive after the Simon blast
when they witnessed the official concern over fallout levels on the
highways outside of the test site. But the worst was yet to come that
spring when the U.S. Government detonated a thirty-two-kiloton atomic
bomb from atop a tower at the Nevada Test Site. The code name was
Harry; people downwind now remember it with bitterness as "Dirty
Harry."
As sixty-eight-year-old St. George resident William Sleight recorded
the event in his diary:
{May 19, 1953:}
Beautiful morning. We left St. George at 4 a.m. for Las
Vegas, Nevada. We were watching for the A-Bomb explosion on the
desert north of Las Vegas. At 5 a.m., just dawn, we saw the
flash which lit up the skies, a beautiful red, visible for
hundreds of miles away. It was a beautiful sight, a hundred
miles or more away from it. I had my car radio on and at 5:01
a.m. the announcer on KFI, Los Angeles, Calif., said at 5 a.m.
the bomb had been exploded and that it was visible at that
station, and also in Idaho. I drove for ten minutes, then
stopped the car on the roadside, got out and soon after we heard
the report of the blast. It rumbled as thunder, not quite the
same as other blasts we have heard. This is the 9th in a series
of ten, another next week. It makes me shudder when I think of
what misery we may face when men start dropping these terrific
bombs on our cities. Some fanatics are now clamoring for their
use in Korea.
After we came back on Highway 91, we were stopped and a young
man examined our car with an instrument to see if we had picked
up any radioactive dust while traveling on the Highway. Found
none so we missed a free car wash (which would have been
appreciated). . . . Returned to St. George in a high wind which
seems to always follow these explosions.[88]
Winds easily carried radioactive fallout the 135 miles to William
Sleight's home in St. George. Atomic Energy Commission monitors
picked up readings of six thousand milliroentgens in the town, where
news bulletins broadcast the agency's sudden advice to stay indoors
from 9:00 A.M. till noon. Monitoring crews stopped about one hundred
cars heading north from St. George; many vehicles were washed down in
an attempt at decontamination. The fallout was coming down so hard,
AEC scientists later reported at a confidential government conference,
that the commission's workers gave up on washing off the cars in St.
George until the radioactive particles stopped falling.[89] The AEC,
meanwhile, told area media that "radiation had not reached a hazardous
level."[90]
In St. George the blanket of fallout left a bad taste in many
people's mouths--in more ways than one. Lifetime residents of the
town reported, for the first time, an oddly metallic sort of taste in
the air.[91] (This condition would surface again at Three Mile
Island, twenty-six years later.)
Forty miles farther east, according to another secret AEC report, at
least five residents developed symptoms matching signs of radiation
sickness from high doses. The classified AEC report also said that in
the town of La Verkin, twenty miles northeast of St. George, goats
turned blue after clouds of fallout wafted through their grazing
area.[92]
The day after Dirty Harry, downwind residents barraged the AEC with
complaints. "Reverberations from the atomic tests in Nevada Tuesday
echoed in Washington Wednesday as Southern Utah residents protested to
Representative Douglas R. Stringfellow (R-Utah) about radiation
contamination in the area," narrated {The} (Salt Lake) {Tribune}.[93]
Congressman Stringfellow followed up by asking the AEC to stop the
Nevada test program because of fallout. The AEC refused. (The next
year Stringfellow lost his race for reelection.)
Two days after the Harry explosion, while AEC commissioners
discussed the heavy fallout dumped on St. George and vicinity, an AEC
worker tried to obtain names of milk producers in the area and failed.
"It was just as well," he reported in an agency memo. "I was afraid
it would create a disturbance."[94] Rulan (Boots) Cox, operator of
Cox Dairy in St. George for thirty years beginning in 1949, had
radiation monitoring equipment at his dairy the entire time of
atmospheric nuclear testing upwind. He sent samples to federal
addresses on a regular basis, but was never informed of results.[95]
New downwind samples of milk initially showed high levels of
radioactivity. By the time the milk was boiled in Las Vegas and Los
Alamos laboratories, AEC researchers found little radioactivity; the
iodine 131 was being destroyed in the lab heating process.[96]
After the Harry test the AEC was faced with a new problem.
Commissioner Henry D. Smyth, according to agency minutes, "was
concerned about the public relations aspects of the tests, especially
in view of the St. George, Utah, incident and the large number of
shots already fired." The other AEC commissioner in attendance,
Eugene M. Zuckert, also perceived nascent difficulties. "A serious
psychological problem has arisen, and the AEC must be prepared to
study an alternate to holding future tests at the Nevada Test Site.
In the present frame of mind of the public, it would take only a
single illogical and unforeseeable incident to preclude holding any
future tests in the United States."[97]
The Pentagon, however, pushed hard for the AEC to stand firm. At a
joint meeting in late May 1953, according to classified minutes,
Defense Department representatives conveyed "the opinion that AEC is
making a serious mistake in over-emphasizing the effects of fall-out
resulting from recent tests." One general criticized official
measures such as washing down cars and urging residents to stay
indoors for a few hours after the Harry test; he complained that "the
precautions taken by AEC were extreme and caused undue public
concern."[98]
Meanwhile, on the morning of May 27, AEC chairman Gordon Dean met
with the Commander-in-Chief. President Eisenhower, Dean recorded in
his diary, "expressed some concern, not too serious, but made the
suggestion that we leave `thermonuclear' out of press releases and
speeches. Also `fusion' and `hydrogen.'" In the wake of hydrogen
explosions in the Marshall Islands during the past year, and with more
sophisticated nuclear weapons tests scheduled, Eisenhower instructed
the AEC's top executive to keep the public "confused as to `fission'
and `fusion.'"[99]
------
88. William Sleight, diary, made available to authors with permission of
family through Citizens' Call organization.
89. {Chicago Tribune}, April 1-5, 1979, published as booklet "Radiation,"
p. 11.
90. {Washington County News} (Utah), May 21, 1953.
91. Preston Truman, interview, February 1981. As state director of
Citizens' Call and a lifelong resident of Utah, Truman said he had
heard many accounts by St. George residents recalling a metallic taste
after the Harry test.
92. {Deseret News}, September 5, 1979.
93. {The Tribune} (Salt Lake), May 21, 1953.
94. {Chicago Tribune}, April 1-5, 1979, "Radiation," p. 9.
95. Ibid.
96. {Deseret News}, September 5, 1979.
97. AEC Commissioners Meeting Minutes, May 22, 1953.
98. AEC-MLC Joint Meeting Minutes, May 28, 1953. At the same meeting
Military Liaison Committee chairman Robert LeBaron said that the
government "must avoid arousing public fears to the point of
large-scale public opposition to the continental tests."
99. Gordon Dean, diary, May 27, 1953.
------
Fallout on Livestock
Downwind of the Nevada Test Site the epidemics of leukemia and
cancer among residents would come later. Animals, however, were
immediately affected. The AEC quietly paid a few hundred dollars to
owners of some horses that suffered beta radiation burns in 1953.[100]
But the concern about livestock burns was soon overshadowed as sheep
began dropping dead--in unprecedented numbers and with unprecedented
rapidity.
One hundred fifty miles from the test site, on Wheeler Mountain land
owned by George Swallow in Nevada, about seventeen hundred sheep
grazed on tender grass. It was lambing time in spring 1953. On the
third Tuesday morning in May, George Swallow, his brother Dick, and a
ranch hand named Lee Whitlock watched a pink fallout cloud (from the
Harry detonation) drift overhead, toward the Utah line, Air Force jets
following behind. Within a few weeks five hundred of the females in
the flock of seventeen hundred sheep were dead. Sixty-five percent of
new lambs were stillborn.[101]
The Swallows owned eleven sheep herds of the same size; the herd
that sustained the high ratio of deaths and dead births was the one on
Wheeler Mountain when the Harry blast fallout passed through.[102]
George Swallow expressed his suspicions to the AEC. "We told Mr.
Swallow that our experts have assured us that this sort of thing can't
happen," AEC acting field manager Joe Sanders informed national
headquarters.[103]
But the AEC's own files were filled with classified descriptions of
similar incidents throughout Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. One Utah
sheepherder reported twenty-five hundred stillbirths. Cattle and
horses developed lesions and severe sores in large numbers.[104]
Dr. Stephen Brower was Iron County agricultural agent in
southwestern Utah at the time. The Atomic Energy Commission stressed
to Dr. Brower that the federal government had no intention of being
held accountable for herd losses. Word first came from the chief of
the AEC's Biology Branch of the Division of Biological Medicine, Dr.
Paul B. Pearson.
Brower recalled that Pearson "told me . . . that the AEC could under
no circumstances afford to have a claim established against them and
have that precedent set. And he further indicated that the sheepmen
could not expect under any circumstances to be reimbursed for that
reason."[105]
In Cedar City, Utah, a U.S. Public Health Service veterinarian, Dr.
Arthur Wolff, studied area sheep in June 1953. "My main concern was
whether there was radioactivity involved," he recalled. "We autopsied
a couple of animals, and I took some specimens back with me and took
some [radiation] measurements. I was able to determine, yes, there
was a relatively high level of radiation in the Iodine-131 in the
thyroid and some radiation on the wool of these sheep.[106]
Cedar City sheepherder Kern Bulloch described what happened with his
herd in 1953 this way:
We were over at Coyote Pass right next to the bomb site just
herding our sheep. One morning we were sitting in the saddle
there, and some airplanes come up and one of them dropped a
bomb. Jesus, it was bright! I put my hands up like that and
you could doggone near see your bones. And then that cloud come
right over top of us, it mushroomed right over our camp and our
herd. And we were sitting there--'course we didn't know a thing
about radiation or bombs or anything else. Pretty soon here
comes some jeeps with Army personnel, and they said to us, "My
golly, you fellas are in a hot spot." We didn't even know what
they were talking about.
Then we started driving the sheep back to Cedar [City], and we
just started losing them. We got them in the yard there to get
their lambs out, and gosh, every time you'd go in there, there'd
be 20 or 30 dead sheep. The lambs were born with little legs,
kind of potbellied. Some of them didn't have any wool, kind of
a skin instead of wool. We figure we lost between 1,200 and
1,500 head close to half our herd.
Later, the scientists come, we took them up to a pile of bones
and I remember putting a Geiger counter down. Somebody said,
"Are they hot?" And one of the scientists said, "Hot? I'll say!
This needle just about hit the post."[107]
Kern Bulloch remembered, nearly three decades later, "we just
started to losing so many lambs that my father--[who] was alive at
that time--just about went crazy. He had never seen anything like it
before. Neither had I; neither had anybody else."[108]
Twenty-seven years passed before some semblance of the full story
reached beyond the memories of downwind herders and officials privy to
classified government files. In 1980 the U.S. House of
Representatives Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations provided
the sort of overview kept from a national spotlight for decades.
The committee reported that, at the time of the two heaviest fallout
tests in Nevada during the spring of 1953, there were 11,710 sheep
grazing in a zone from 40 miles north to 160 miles east of the test
site. "Of these sheep, 1,420 lambing ewes (12.1 percent) and 2,970
new lambs (25.4 percent) died during the spring and summer of
1953."[109]
This sheep mortality rate was considerably above normal.[110] But
the government denied that there was anything amiss--refusing to admit
radiation was involved. "It seemed like a policy decision had been
made, and federal officials were there to implement it," Dr. Brower
told us. "The government just wanted to cover up."[111]
Although the AEC profusely insisted in its public statements
throughout the 1950s and beyond that fallout had nothing to do with
sheep ills, a different assessment later came from Dr. Harold Knapp, a
scientist who served with the AEC Fallout Studies Branch in the early
1960s. "The simplest explanation of the primary cause of death in the
lambing ewes is irradiation of the ewe's gastrointestinal tract by
beta particles from all the fission products that were ingested by the
sheep along with open range forage," Dr. Knapp concluded. Radiation
doses to the sheep internal tracts "are calculated to be in the range
of thousands of rads, even though the external gamma dose to the sheep
was within the 3.9 r limit per test series established by the Atomic
Energy Commission as acceptable for persons living in areas adjacent
to the test site."[112]
The 1980 House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee report
disclosed that its researchers had uncovered "substantial
documentation from the files of the Government veterinarians and
scientists assigned the task of investigating the 1953 sheep deaths,
which revealed the Government's concerted effort to disregard and to
discount all evidence of a causal relationship between exposure of the
sheep to radioactive fallout and their deaths."[113]
Recently declassified minutes of a secret June 10, 1953, AEC meeting
verify that the commissioners were aware that "sheep grazing in an
area approximately 50 miles from the site were determined to have beta
burns in their nostrils and on their backs and 500-1,000 out of a
total of approximately 10,000 were reported to have died while being
moved to grazing lands in Utah."[114]
But the AEC commissioners proved more concerned with publicity than
health problems of either sheep or humans.[115] At a July 7 meeting
Commissioner Henry Smyth observed that public concern could be allayed
by comparing bomb fallout "to radiation incurred in the normal medical
use of X-rays."[116] It was a public-relations angle that proved to
be a favorite for the AEC, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and
utilities operating nuclear power plants across the nation in future
decades.
But the analogy--comparing X rays with radioactivity from nuclear
fission--is highly misleading. An atomic bomb, or a nuclear reactor,
produces radioactive alpha and beta particles that can be deadly if
inhaled or swallowed even in minute quantities; the alpha and beta
"internal emitters" are not present in the penetrating X rays used for
medical purposes. The comparison with X rays also falsely assumes
that bomb fallout or emissions from nuclear plants are evenly
distributed in the population. A number of factors--including weather
conditions and radioactive contamination of the ecological food
chain[117]--can subject some animals or people to higher amounts of
radioactivity.
Twenty-six years later the report by congressional investigators
quoted from the AEC's conclusive press statement about the sheep,
issued on January 6, 1954:
On the basis of information now available, it is evident that
radioactivity from atomic tests was not responsible for deaths
and illness among sheep in areas adjacent to the Nevada Proving
Grounds last Spring, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission reported
today.
The AEC findings, reached as the result of extensive research
studies, was concurred in by the U.S. Public Health Service and
the Bureau of Animal Industry, U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Prior to issuance by the AEC, the report was reviewed by the
Department of Health, State of Utah. Special studies were
conducted by veterinary and medical research scientists at Los
Alamos Scientific Laboratory and Hanford Works and the
University of Tennessee to determine whether radioactivity
contributed to the deaths.[118]
But some of the AEC's own experts disagreed. Veterinarian Dr.
Richard Thompsett, for example, reported that lesions on downwind
sheep typified effects of beta radiation--and that the atomic tests
had been a factor in the mass deaths of sheep.[119] Dr. Thompsett's
report was never published. Dr. Stephen Brower recounted that
Thompsett's "report was picked up--even his own personal copy--and he
was told to rewrite it and eliminate any reference to speculation
about radiation damage or effects."[120]
Follow-up research by scientists at the Los Alamos lab--C.
Lushbaugh, J. F. Spaulding, and D. B. Hale--concluded that among sheep
downwind from the Nevada Test Site "the skin lesion was remarkably
similar, histologically, to severe beta ray burns as demonstrated
experimentally." The researchers added, "It would appear from these
gross observations that this and similar lesions seen in the field . .
. confirm well enough to a presumptive diagnosis of a radiation-
produced lesion."[121] Publicly the AEC stuck to its story--a story
that would be repeated time and again to farmers and ranchers downwind
from nuclear facilities.
In his role as county agricultural agent in southwest Utah, Dr.
Brower accompanied sheep rancher Doug Clark to talk with federal
administrators. "Doug raised some questions with the team of
scientists, one of whom was a colonel," Dr. Brower remembered many
years later. The colonel "seemed to be the leading spokesman to kind
of press this issue that it couldn't have been radiation. Doug asked
him some fairly technical questions about the effects of radiation on
internal organs that he'd gotten from other veterinarians."[122]
In response the colonel called Doug Clark a "dumb sheepman" and told
him he was "stupid--he couldn't understand the answer if it was given
to him, and for just 10 or 15 minutes, just kind of berated him rather
than answer the question."[123]
A week after the Atomic Energy Commission's unequivocal public
denial that sheep had been harmed by atomic test fallout, AEC
officials faced angry livestock owners in a conference room of the
Cedar City firehouse. The January 13, 1954, meeting included a dozen
or so federal officials and a roughly equal number of area livestock
owners.
"We know that practically all the sheep that range in that area had
these effects," said a local rancher. "We fed these sheep corn and
tried to keep them up. I couldn't keep my sheep up where they were
able to raise a lamb. I had never seen it before.[124]
"We would like to have an answer for you," responded AEC biological
medicine chief Dr. Paul Pearson. "We don't have any explanation for
it. There have been instances of disease coming in that caused
different effects, we don't know what happened."[125]
"There is very little protein in corn and they could be low in
protein," interjected Leo K. Bustad, a General Electric Company envoy
from the AEC-controlled Hanford Nuclear Reservation, prime production
center for weapons-grade plutonium. "How was their flesh?"[126]
Refusing to be drawn into a discussion about his sheep's flesh with
the GE representative, the rancher said that his sheep got all the
protein they needed from grazing. "Range is white sage and black
sage. . . . Sage is very high in protein."[127]
And so it went. "The body dose radiation that these sheep got is
around five roentgens," explained GE's Bustad midway through the
meeting. "You can get more roentgens from a fluoroscope or an X-ray
machine than these sheep got through body radiation." Bustad failed
to note that the sheep ingested radioactive particles into their
bodies, which does not occur during an X ray. Nor did he mention that
five roentgens is a hazardous dose in either case.[128]
A year later the Bulloch family filed suit in federal court, suing
the U.S. Government for the loss of fifteen hundred sheep because of
fallout. When the case came to trial in 1956, the federal government
presented testimony that the sheep died of natural causes.[129]
During initial investigations the Bullochs had heard researchers
attribute the sheep deaths to radiation. "A lot of those scientists
that checked the sheep and admitted it, when they got to court they
had a different story," commented McRae Bulloch.[130]
The Bulloch family lost their court suit. Twenty-five years later
no downwind rancher had been able to collect a penny from the federal
government for a single dead sheep.[131]
------
100. {Deseret News}, February 15, 1979.
101. {Chicago Tribune}, April 1-5, 1979, "Radiation," p. 10.
102. Ibid.
103. Ibid.
104. Ibid.
105. {Forgotten Guinea Pigs}, p. vii.
106. {Deseret News}, February 20, 1979.
107. {Life}, June 1980, p. 36.
108. {Forgotten Guinea Pigs}, p. vii.
109. Ibid., p. 3.
110. Dr. Stephen Brower, interview, March 1981. When we spoke with him,
Dr. Brower was a professor at Brigham Young University.
111. Ibid.
112. Dr. Harold Knapp, "Sheep Deaths in Utah and Nevada Following the 1953
Nuclear Tests," quoted in {Forgotten Guinea Pigs}, p. 4.
113. {Forgotten Guinea Pigs}, p. 4.
114. AEC Commissioners Meeting Minutes, June 10, 1953.
115. On October 26, 1953, the AEC convened a secret meeting at Los Alamos
to take up the question of sheep deaths. The scientific method was not
of paramount concern as the AEC's chief of the Weapons Radiation
Effects Branch presided. Dr. George Dunning stressed to the assembled
scientists the need for getting together a self-exonerating report for
AEC commissioner Eugene Zuckert. As recorded by federal veterinarian
Dr. Arthur Wolff, the influential Dr. Dunning informed the meeting's
participants that a firm statement--concluding there was no connection
between the nuclear tests and the sheep woes--would be necessary
"before Commissioner Zuckert [would] open the `purse strings' for
future continental weapons tests." Scientists present tacitly agreed
to go along with such a declaration, despite the opinions of some that
a judgment would be premature, with the understanding it would be
tagged "for internal use only" within the AEC. See {Forgotten Guinea
Pigs}, p. 7.
116. AEC Commissioners Meeting Minutes, July 7, 1953.
117. See {Washington Post}, November 11, 1979, for Dick Brukenfeld's
article "A New German Study Challenges the NRC Assurances," on food
chain concentrations of radiation.
118. "AEC Report on Sheep Losses Adjacent to the Nevada Proving Grounds,"
January 6, 1954; quoted in {Forgotten Guinea Pigs}, p. 4.
119. {Forgotten Guinea Pigs}, p. 6.; {Deseret News}, February 15, 1979.
120. {Forgotten Guinea Pigs}, p. 6.
121. {Deseret News}, February 15, 1979.
122. {Forgotten Guinea Pigs}, p. viii.
123. Ibid. It was, as Dr. Brower put it, "a tough kind of experience for
Doug. I remember he left there to go out to his ranch to meet with
the loan company to account for what sheep he had left, and within a
couple of hours, he was dead from a heart attack. I think that . . .
part of the stress that he experienced at that time was that abuse that
he had received from these officials."
124. Minutes of livestock owners' meeting with AEC officials, Firehouse,
Conference Room, Cedar City, Utah, January 13, 1954.
125. Ibid.
126. Ibid.
127. Ibid.
128. Ibid.
129. {Deseret News}, February 20, 1979.
130. {Life}, June 1980, p. 36.
131. Bruce Findley of Salt Lake City (current attorney for downwind sheep
ranchers), interview, March 1981; {Deseret News}, February 20, 1979.
------
Unwanted Controversy
Anxious to counter its increasing credibility problems, in 1954 the
Atomic Energy Commission entered into an off-site radioactivity
surveillance agreement with the U.S. Public Health Service.[132]
Not until 1979 did the terms of the AEC-PHS arrangement become
public knowledge. After award-winning journalist Gordon Eliot White,
Washington correspondent for the Salt Lake City daily {The Deseret
News}, dislodged more than fifteen thousand A-test documents he
reported that "PHS furnished trained personnel who worked under AEC
funding and under strict AEC control." Their mission was not to
ensure public health, but rather "to protect the test site from
controversy."[133]
The 1954 pact prohibited the PHS from any public release of its
radiation data or "dissemination of information connected with
activities under this agreement, except as prescribed by the AEC . .
." At the end of the year AEC tossed in a stipulation that any
unauthorized release of information to the public could subject "the
Public Health Service, its agents, employees, or subcontractors, to
criminal liability" under the Atomic Energy Act.[134]
The AEC-PHS off-site monitoring agreement remained in effect not
only during the last nine years (1954 to 1962) of atmospheric nuclear
blasts at the Nevada Test Site, but also for the first eight years
(1963 to 1970) of large underground nuclear bomb tests in Nevada.[135]
Those underground detonations also spewed large quantities of
radioactivity downwind for hundreds of miles.[136]
Despite the intense and pervasive downwind fallout from the Nevada
Test Site in 1953 Washington remained enthusiastic for more
continental nuclear weapons detonations. The prevailing sentiment at
the federal level was aptly expressed in a letter to the acting
chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Thomas E. Murray, written by
AEC Biology and Medicine Advisory Committee head Dr. Elvin C. Stakman
on March 25, 1954:
Paraphrasing General Forrest's famous saying, "Victory goes to
the nation that gits there fastest with the mostest and bestest
weapons." This is no less true in the atomic age.
It is therefore essential to continue the Nevada Proving
Grounds in order to achieve maximum speed in the development of
weapons. Speed is essential to national survival.
In emergencies such as this some risks, immediate and long
term, must be accepted. These risks should be frankly and
publicly acknowledged. However, the policy of minimizing these
risks must be continued in both the local and national
interest.[137]
Perhaps some unlikely victims of the Nevada test program were the
Hollywood cast and film crew of Howard Hughes's production {The
Conqueror}. In 1954 John Wayne, Susan Hayward, and Agnes Moorehead,
and producer-director Dick Powell filmed on the sandy dunes outside of
St. George, Utah. They were there for three months.
A quarter century later John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead,
and Dick Powell had all died of cancer. Wayne, a heavy smoker,
succumbed to cancer of his lungs, throat, and stomach in 1979;
Hayward died of skin, breast and uterine cancer in 1975; Moorehead
passed away from uterine cancer in 1974. Another star of the movie,
Pedro Armendariz, developed kidney cancer in 1960 and was later struck
with terminal cancer of the lymphatic system. Dick Powell died from
lymph cancer when it spread to his lungs in 1963.[138]
The coincidence of these cases was placed into a larger pattern when
{People} magazine researched the subsequent health of the entire
Hollywood entourage that had worked on location in St. George. They
found that out of 220 people in the cast and crew, ninety-one had
contracted cancer by late 1980, and half of the cancer victims had
died of the disease.[139] (This survey did not include the couple of
hundred local American Indians who served as extras in the film.)
"With these numbers, this case could qualify as an epidemic,"
remarked University of Utah radiological health director Dr. Robert C.
Pendleton.[140] For two decades Pendleton had been warning that
radioactive "hot spots" remained in numerous Utah locations, even
after atmospheric testing had ceased.[141] Added Dr. Ronald S. Oseas
of the Harbor UCLA Medical Center: "It is known that radiation
contributes to the risk of cancer. With these numbers, it is highly
probable that the {Conqueror} group was affected by that additive
effect."[142]
Ellen Powell, Michael Wayne, and Susan Hayward's son Tim Barker had
accompanied their parents to the set in 1954. Tim Barker told of his
mother's protracted cancer: "She was in a fetal position, and she had
lost her swallowing reflex, she had pneumonia and she had lost her
hair." In 1968 he had a benign tumor removed from his mouth. Michael
Wayne later suffered from skin cancer. Barker echoed the sentiments
of many residents downwind from the test site when he asked, "If the
Government knew there was a possibility of exposure, why didn't they
just warn us?"[143]
Federal nuclear authorities had long been aware of the deep
resentment that had taken hold in numerous communities within a radius
of several hundred miles of the Nevada Test Site. But the specter of
culpability for the cancer deaths of such popular public figures
caused concern at usually stolid government bureaus. At the Pentagon
one official of the Defense Nuclear Agency responded to the news by
murmuring, "Please, God, don't let us have killed John Wayne."[144]
------
132. {Forgotten Guinea Pigs}, p. 18; see also pp. 19-22.
133. {Deseret News}, April 5, 1979.
134. Ibid. Summarizing the agreement, White's article added that PHS "was
not permitted to set up a Nevada office until AEC approved the security
arrangements, even though PHS was ordered only to measure readings
outside the proving grounds. AEC retained the right of full access, at
any time of day or night, to the PHS offices so commission officers
could determine `security obligations (to the AEC) are being met.' The
ultimate responsibility for the off-site monitoring was retained by
AEC . . ."
135. In 1970 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency assumed operational
authority for monitoring outside the Nevada Test Site. What agreements
the EPA endorsed in secret covenants--with the AEC and its successor
atomic military agency, the U.S. Department of Energy--remained a
subject of speculation for anyone except those with high security
clearances. Critics noted that EPA's radiation monitoring program
remained heavily staffed by former AEC officials as the 1980s began.
136. Underground nuclear test leaks information and references are in
Chapter Five.
137. Dr. Elvin C. Stakman to Thomas E. Murray, March 25, 1954.
138. {People}, November 10, 1980, pp. 42-47.
139. Ibid., p. 42.
140. Ibid.
141. {The Conqueror} health statistics were especially startling because no
atom bombs were exploded in Nevada the year that the movie was filmed
(1954); cast and crew were exposed to residual radioactivity left by
Nevada atomic tests in previous years (1951-1953).
142. {People}, November 10, 1980, p. 44.
143. Ibid., p. 46.
144. Ibid.
------
[part 5 of 18]
4
Test Fallout, Political Fallout
Out in the Pacific, hydrogen bomb tests seemed far away from American
communities. But the nuclear explosions there were producing
unprecedented quantities of fallout--dropping on people around the
world.
A 1951 two-page {Life} magazine photo spread hailing "Operation
Greenhouse" at Eniwetok must have sounded rather glorious to most
readers: "Finally at sunup one April morning a blinding flash and
shattering rumble came from the tiny atoll. The AEC was busily
engaged at its mid-ocean proving ground in testing its latest
products. . . ."[1]
The first blast in May, code-named George and detonated from a tower
on Eniwetok, proved to be a crucial building block for achieving the
H-bomb. "Without such a test no one of us could have had the
confidence to proceed further along speculations, inventions, and the
difficult choice of the most promising possibility,"[2] Edward Teller
later wrote. In the process thousands more American servicemen were
exposed to atomic-fission products from nearby explosions.
After the George test, U.S. Navy seaman Artie Duvall was aboard a
ship ordered to ferry scientists to the blast site. The scientists
wore protective garb; the Navy seamen wore jeans, and many had their
shirts off in the tropical sun. Duvall and his crew took sick and
began vomiting. "It was like having some terrible flu," he
remembered. They were ordered to sick bay. The next day, Duvall
recalled, a wardroom briefing occurred, with an officer telling the
men that they had "received a lethal dose of radiation." A physician
recommended weekly blood tests--which were never conducted.[3]
Duvall developed skin cancer, and in 1962--unable to obtain
dosimetry records--began a long battle with the government. A decade
later he had a heart attack, followed by major heart surgery. He was
forced to sell his house. The VA rejected his claim for service-
connected benefits, telling him, "There is nothing that indicates that
your heart condition is medically attributed by your physician to the
history of radiation."[4]
Duvall reminisced, "We had no knowledge at all of atomic bombs. I
had no fear at all of radiation. I didn't even really know what
radiation was."[5]
At Eniwetok, when the military did raise the matter of health
hazards of radiation, it did so in its customary fashion. Air Force
Colonel Louis Benne--a decorated fighter pilot who received the Silver
Star, Distinguished Flying Cross Air Medal with twelve oak-leaf
clusters, and Purple Heart--recalled his introduction to radiation at
Eniwetok as he lay dying from internal bleeding on May 11, 1978, at
the age of fifty-six: "When we arrived at Eniwetok . . . or even
before we left Hawaii . . . we got a briefing that said that a lot of
people were concerned about the roentgens that we would be exposed to
on these atomic shots . . . The Army said there was nothing to worry
about because there was no doubt in their minds that five roentgens a
month is nothing . . . and even 20 is nothing. . . . Well, the funny
thing is, blowing of the wind shifted and everyone got about 10 to 15
roentgens, so they had to up the roentgens to 20 on the first shot
and, of course, we still had some shots to go. So, anyway, Dorothy,
it was a big joke."[6]
Of course to Dorothy Benne, who tape-recorded her husband's
statement, it seemed a very sad joke.
Another Operation Greenhouse veteran, Vernon Lee Hawthorne, was
still a teenager when he boarded an Army troopship for Eniwetok. By
the time he died at age thirty from pancreatic cancer at a VA hospital
in Amarillo, Texas, the years of suffering had taken a severe
financial as well as emotional toll on his family. "The last year he
was alive, we had a total income of $400," recalled his widow Bettye
Hawthorne Fronterhouse. In the face of continued VA denials of claims
for benefits, "my children and I came close to starving."[7] One son
developed prostate trouble; another had four tumors removed including
one from the jugular vein; the youngest son underwent surgeries for a
two-pound mass tumor in his groin. Four of five grandchildren
required treatment for anemia. A grandson developed a tumor in his
scrotum like his father's, a granddaughter developed a tumor on her
back. The ills had no precedent elsewhere in the family tree.[8]
Bettye Fronterhouse told a citizens' commission in Washington, "My
husband should have had a right to know when he went there that he
might die 10 years later from cancer at 30 years old and never have a
chance to see his children grow and his grandchildren. Because we had
plans for our future, but it was wiped out, taken away from us."[9]
------
1. {Life}, June 25, 1951, pp. 28-29.
2. York, {The Advisors}, p. 77.
3. {Atomic Veterans' Newsletter}, November/December pp. 10-11. For
evidence linking radiation to heart disease, see Arthur Elkeles, M.D,
"Alpha-ray Activity in Coronary Artery Discase," {Journal of the
American Geriatric Society}, May 1968, pp. 576-583.
4. Ibid., p. 11.
5. Ibid., p. 10.
6. {Atomic Veterans' Newsletter}, spring 1980, p. 2.
7. {Atomic Veterans' Newsletter}, November/December 1979, p. 8.
8. Michael Marchino, "A Wrongful Death," {Progressive}, November 1980,
pp. 9-10.
9. {Citizens' Hearings}, pp. 24-26.
------
Perfecting the H-Bomb
In the northern section of Eniwetok Atoll, on the island of
Elugelab, the U.S. constructed a large laboratory building in
1952.[10] Placed in the lab was a bulky mechanism nicknamed Mike that
included fission weaponry and deuterium frozen into liquid form. The
cylindrical apparatus was twenty-two feet long, with a diameter of
five and a half feet, weighing a total of twenty-one tons. On the
first day of November 1952 the laboratory's contents exploded with a
force of over ten megatons--nearly one thousand times more powerful
than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. With the blast, proof
existed that a hydrogen bomb was within reach. U.S. Government
records listed Mike as the first detonated "experimental thermonuclear
device."[11] The island on which it was situated disappeared.
The experience "so unnerved Norris Bradbury, the Los Alamos
director," said a later narrative of the Mike explosion, "that for a
brief time he wondered if the people at Eniwetok should somehow try to
conceal from their colleagues back in New Mexico [at Los Alamos] the
magnitude of what had happened."[12]
With the gigantic hydrogen explosions in the Pacific Ocean the
fledgling Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California was gaining
great importance--as was one of its prime movers, Edward Teller.
Fellow physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, an opponent of H-bomb
development and a rival of Teller's, came under growing attack.
America was at an apex of the cold war. The arms race between the
U.S. and the Soviet Union, and the fears of internal subversion
fomented by McCarthyism, made the AEC less prone than ever to tolerate
dissension within its own ranks. That repressive atmosphere
intensified in April 1953, when President Eisenhower signed an
executive order launching an unprecedented far-reaching investigation
into the "loyalty" of federal employees.[13] Two months later, with
great fanfare, the government executed Ethel and Julius Rosenberg,
convicted as spies who had conspired to give American atomic secrets
to the Soviets.[14]
In 1954 the AEC held hearings on the matter of Robert Oppenheimer's
security clearance. Oppenheimer's consultancy with the AEC was soon
to expire, but this didn't prevent the AEC chairman, Lewis Strauss,
from carrying on what many scientists considered a "witch hunt"
against him.[15] On the basis of information supplied by the FBI,
Oppenheimer was accused of guilt by association because of his long-
known early contacts with Communist Party members in the 1930s.
A two-year-old statement to the FBI by Teller, questioning
Oppenheimer's loyalty and character, had a major influence on the
hearings. Teller, although not openly attacking Oppenheimer's
loyalty, cited his opposition to development of the H-bomb--implying
that Oppenheimer had a "defect" in his personality.[16] The AEC then
filed a report stripping Oppenheimer of his security clearance.
Chairman Strauss wrote the majority report echoing Teller's charge
that Oppenheimer had "fundamental defects" in his character.[17]
The same year that Oppenheimer was purged from the AEC, America's
nuclear weapons testers returned to the Marshall Islands with hydrogen
explosives portable enough to qualify as bona fide bombs. From
February to May six varieties of hydrogen bombs were detonated during
"Operation Castle."[18] The first and largest, code-named Bravo, was
fifteen megatons.
The American troops participating in Operation Castle were the first
to get a close look at the H-bomb in action.
Marv Hyman was aboard the U.S.S. {Curtis} on March 1, 1954, when the
Bravo shot inaugurated the hydrogen bomb. The ship's crew was kept
below decks for three days as Bravo's fallout fell, Hyman recalled in
1980. "We were so well-indoctrinated, we were told not to say
anything," recollected Hyman. But Navy denials did not change what
had occurred. "I don't know how far away we were--they never told us.
There was no way to get out of the fallout when the wind came right
back at us. They set up a sprinkler system on deck."[19] Seawater
was used.
"For three or four days we weren't allowed outside. They closed all
the ports and hatches. Then they said it was `low enough' to go out.
They let us go on the islands in the Eniwetok and Bikini atolls and go
swimming. I saw dead sea life all over, floating around by the
millions." Later, sailing into San Francisco, the U.S.S. {Curtis}
remained radioactive, Hyman said. "They wouldn't let us off the ship
for three days."[20]
Navy seaman Robert Smith was twenty-three years old when he arrived
at Bikini Island for Operation Castle. "We did not know nuclear
weapons tests had already been conducted in this area. We even went
swimming there," Smith recalled in 1979 from his home in Del,
Oklahoma. "At the time, most of us did not even know what an H-bomb
was."[21]
------
10. For a revealing planning document for the 1952 hydrogen tests at
Eniwetok, see "Thermonuclear Research at the University of California
Radiation Laboratory," Director of Military Application, AEC 425/20,
Washington, D.C., June 13,1952; quoted in York, {The Advisors}, p. 82.
11. {Announced US Nuclear Tests}, p. 6.
12. McPhee, {Curve of Binding Energy}, p. 77. A key American designer of
nuclear warheads, Theodore Taylor, later mused: "The theorist's world
is a world of the best people and the worst of possible results."
(McPhee, {Curve of Binding Energy}, p. 87.)
13. Douglas T. Miller and Marion Nowak, {The Fifties: The Way We Really
Were} (New York: Doubleday, 1977), p. 405.
14. For accounts of the Rosenberg case that challenge the government's
charges, see Walter Schneir and Miriam Schneir, {Invitation to an
Inquest} (New York: Doubleday, 1965); Robert and Michael Meeropol,
{We Are Your Sons} (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975).
15. Carolyn Kopp, "The Origins of the American Scientific Debate over
Fallout Hazards," {Social Studies of Science} (1979): 411 (hereafter
cited as "Debate over Fallout Hazards").
16. P. M. Stern, {The Oppenheimer Case: Security on Trial} (New York:
Harper & Row, 1969). See also D. J. Keveles, {The Physicists} (New
York: Knopf, 1978), pp. 380-382.
17. {Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists}, September 1954, pp. 275-277.
18. More than a quarter century after Operation Castle there were
indications that the U.S. Government was not unreservedly proud of it.
When, in cooperation with the nation's nuclear weapons design labs, the
Department of Energy published an official list of American nuclear
tests through the end of 1979, the listing of Operation Castle omitted
"yield range" for four of the test series' six hydrogen blasts. The
omissions occurred for hydrogen weapons tests code-named Romeo, Union,
Yankee, and Nectar--which exploded at a combined power of over thirty-
two megatons, according to a U.S. Government report declassified at the
end of 1972. See {Announced US Nuclear Tests}, in comparison to "Joint
Force Seven" cited in York, {The Advisors}, p. 86.
19. {Arizona Daily Star}, April 13, 1980.
20. Ibid.
21. {Atomic Veterans' Newsletter}, November/December 1979, p. 7
------
The Islanders
As the U.S. Government readied Operation Castle, it informed the
chief of Rongelap Atoll about the nuclear tests scheduled for a
farther west part of the Marshall Islands; no precautions were
recommended. Eighty-six people were living on Rongelap when the Bravo
H-bomb exploded. Winds were heading in their general direction.[22]
Like other people living on Rongelap, magistrate John Anjain noticed
white flecks that looked like snow falling around them; soon the
ground was covered with a layer of fallout over an inch thick.[23]
"We saw a flash of lightning in the west like a second sun rising,"
Anjain said as he talked of memories still vivid in 1980. "We heard a
loud explosion and within minutes the ground began to shake. A few
hours later the radioactive fallout began to drop on the people, into
the drinking water, and on the food. The children played in the
colorful ash-like powder. They did not know what it was and many
erupted on their arms and faces."[24]
On the neighboring Rongerik Atoll, U.S. monitoring equipment capable
of measuring one hundred millirads per hour went off scale.[25] The
Americans put on extra clothing and ducked inside a tightly closed
building; within thirty-four hours, all twenty-eight Americans on
Rongerik were evacuated.[26]
Back on Rongelap, which was closer to the Bravo blast, the people
were not removed until more than two days had passed from the time the
fallout first hit.[27] "Our people began to be very sick," John
Anjain remembered. "They vomited, burns showed on their skin, and
people's hair began to fall out."[28]
The AEC's own reports later conceded severe health damage, admitting
to eighteen deaths among nineteen children in the Marshall Islands who
received one-thousand-rad thyroid doses from U.S. hydrogen bomb tests
in the area.[29] (Comparable dosages of radiation were absorbed by
young children living in St. George, Utah, in 1953, according to
secret estimates by top AEC officials--who calculated that thirty
cases of cancer would be expected to develop among St. George
residents as a result.)[30] Out of twenty-two Rongelap children
exposed to the fallout from the Bravo test, nineteen have had thyroid
nodules surgically removed.[31]
Nor was the damage confined to thyroids, as Anjain knew from grief-
stricken personal experience. His son Lekoj, one year old when the
fallout settled on Rongelap in 1954, was nineteen years old when he
died of leukemia.[32]
In 1957, amid widespread publicity, Rongelapese were allowed to
return to their atoll. But Rongelap women still experienced a
stillbirth and miscarriage rate twice that of other Marshallese women
who had not been exposed to the fallout. And radiation in their
bodies increased rapidly. A 1961 Brookhaven study found body
radiation levels had risen to sixty times normal for cesium;
strontium 90 levels rose sixfold.[33]
Other Marshall Islanders were also affected. A day after the Bravo
test mistlike fallout reached Utirik Atoll, about 275 miles east of
the test site at Bikini. After two more days passed, the U.S. Navy
evacuated Utirik's 157 residents.[34]
In a press release after the Bravo explosion the AEC declared:
"During the course of a routine atomic test in the Marshall Islands,
28 United States personnel and 236 residents were transported from
neighboring atolls to Kwajalein Island according to a plan as a
precautionary measure. These individuals were unexpectedly exposed to
some radioactivity. There were no burns. All were reported well.
After completion of the atomic tests, the natives will be returned to
their homes."[35]
The Marshall Islands were in the category of a protective "trust
territory" arrangement engineered by the United States Government.
The U.S. had signed a United Nations trusteeship agreement under which
the American government had pledged to "promote the social advancement
of the inhabitants, and to this end shall protect the rights and
fundamental freedoms of all elements of the population without
discrimination; protect the health of the inhabitants . . ."[36]
Some Rongelapese, like other Marshall Island natives, became bitter.
"The American people used the Marshallese people as though they were
animals," charged Mitsuwa Anjain, who was twenty-nine years old and
mother of five when the Bravo fallout arrived at Rongelap. "While I
am still alive, I can never forget what a horrible fate the American
people inflicted on the Marshallese people."[37]
Almira Matayoshi was eighteen years old when the fallout rained on
her home in Rongelap. We interviewed her in Hawaii in 1980, with the
help of a translator. A friendly woman in her mid-forties, Matayoshi
had lost four babies at birth after the bomb explosion--one of which
came into the world with no arms or legs. "The people who are testing
don't care about people on Rongelap and did not care then," she said.
"I will not forget what happened to the people of Rongelap."[38] And
Nelson Anjain, fifty-two, a Rongelap tribal chief, told us: "The U.S.
has to think about what it did to the people of Rongelap. Department
of Energy came to the islands, knew everything was contaminated, but
did not tell us. . . . They come and check people but no report, no
nothing."[39]
For 166 natives of the Bikini isles, where the United States
detonated twenty-three atomic and hydrogen bombs over a period of a
dozen years, a never-ending nightmare began with the first nuclear
blast in 1946. At that time, reflecting the American government's
promises, {United States News} reported: "Experts are sure the
radioactive danger is temporary, and eventually the islanders will be
permitted to return."[40]
Relocated to the barren Rongerik Atoll in 1946, the Bikinians lived
through food shortages as they tried to adapt to new surroundings
within one-half square mile of dry land. Malnutrition followed for
years. In 1948 they were shuttled to Kili Atoll.[41]
During the 1970s, after a widely fanfared return of Bikinians to
their home islands, high concentrations of radioactivity were still
found to be present in the land and food of the atoll. The U.S.
Government removed the 140 residents of Bikini in 1978 after
determining that dangerous amounts of strontium 90 and cesium 137 were
being absorbed into their bodies.[42]
In 1981 the New York Times News Service noted, "No one lives on any
of the islands in the Bikini atoll." Elected Bikinian legislator
Henchi Balos issued a March 1981 statement lamenting that "our land is
radioactive." Said Balos: "We never wanted to leave. If we cannot
go back to Bikini, the United States must pay for taking and
destroying our homeland, for the hardship and suffering we have
experienced and for its failure to care for us."[43]
------
22. Giff Johnson, "Micronesia: America's `Strategic Trust,'" {Bulletin of
the Atomic Scientists}, February 1979, p. 11.
23. {Citizens' Hearings}, pp. 76-77.
24. Ibid.
25. Johnson, "Micronesia," p. 11.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. {Citizens' Hearings}, pp 76-77.
29. {Chicago Tribune}, April 1-5, 1979, published as booklet "Radiation,"
p. 11.
30. Michael M. May, Director, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory to Glenn T.
Seaborg (AEC chairman), November 29, 1965; reprinted in {Health
Effects of Low-Level Radiation}, April 19, 1979, Vol. 2, p. 2120.
31. Giff Johnson, "Paradise Lost," {Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists},
December 1980, p. 28. The article quotes a 1977 federally funded study
by Brookhaven National Laboratory, stating: "Recently about 50 percent
of the exposed Rongelap people showed hypothyroidism without clinical
evidence of thyroid disease, a finding that probably portends trouble
ahead."
32. {Citizens' Hearings}, pp. 76-77.
33. Johnson, "Micronesia," p. 12.
34. Ibid., p. 11.
35. {Marshall Islands: A Chronology--1944-1978} (Honolulu: Micronesia
Support Committee, 1212 University Ave., Honolulu, HI 96826), p. 4.
36. "United Nations Trusteeship Agreement for the United States Trust
Territory of the Pacific Islands," Article 6; reprinted in Greg Dever,
M.D., {Ebeye, Marshall Islands A Public Health Hazard} (Honolulu:
Micronesia Support Committee), p. 25.
37. {Marshall Islands: A Chronology}, p. 4.
38. Almira Matayoshi, interview, May 1980.
39. Nelson Anjain, interview, May 1980.
40. {United States News}, February 1, 1946, p. 26.
41. Johnson, "Micronesia," p. 10.
42. Ibid., pp. 14-15. See also, Johnson, "Paradise Lost," pp. 25-26; {New
York Times}, October 13, 1980.
43. {The Oregonian}, New York Times News Service, March 16, 1981.
------
The {Lucky Dragon}
GIs and natives of the Marshall Islands were not the only victims of
Operation Castle. Twenty-three fishermen aboard the Japanese fishing
boat {Lucky Dragon} were sailing eighty miles east of the Bravo shot
when it was fired. Within days they were tormented by symptoms of
acute radiation exposure--itching skin, nausea, vomiting. When they
arrived back in Japan two weeks after the Bravo test, the entire crew
remained sick; a Geiger counter revealed their bodies contained
radiation from the hydrogen bomb sixteen days after it had exploded.
The boat's rear crew compartment gave off readings of one tenth
roentgen per hour.[44]
The tuna aboard the {Lucky Dragon} were extremely contaminated with
radioactivity. This, as it turned out, was not unusual. In 1954
Japan monitoring programs showed that "a total of 683 tuna boats were
found to have contaminated fish in their holds," nuclear physicist
Ralph E. Lapp wrote in his book {The Voyage of the Lucky Dragon}.
"Some 457 tons of tuna fish were detected above the `worry limit' and
were discarded, either by dumping at sea or by burial in deep ditches
in land. About one out of every eight boats inspected had
contaminated fish on board."[45]
As a nation dependent on fish for food and commerce, the high
radiation levels in tuna caused outrage throughout Japan. And the
conspicuous dousing of the {Lucky Dragon} with fallout had caused
great publicity and political sensitivity. The U.S. Atomic Energy
Commission responded with a public-relations sideshow. Dr. John
Morton, director of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, visited the
stricken fishermen at the hospital and proclaimed them "in better
shape than I had expected."[46] The Japanese considered Morton's
remarks an insult.
After a second hydrogen bomb test AEC chairman Lewis Strauss
returned from the Pacific test site and issued a statement to "correct
certain misapprehensions" about the effects of the Bravo test. The
exposed islanders and Japanese fishermen were recovering rapidly,
Strauss claimed.[47]
Seven months after the Bravo test one of the {Lucky Dragon}'s
twenty-three crew members died; the rest were still being
hospitalized. Intensive care included frequent blood transfusions;
low sperm counts indicated sterility. In 1955 the U.S. Government
paid two million dollars in restitution for damage to the {Lucky
Dragon}, its crew, and its cargo. The widow of {Lucky Dragon}
fisherman Aikichi Kuboyama later told Ralph Lapp: "To a third person
it might almost seem good to die if your death brings such sums of
money. But I can't buy the life of my husband with money."[48]
Reflecting on the {Lucky Dragon} crew members three years after
their encounter with radioactive fallout, Lapp observed: "The true
striking power of the atom was revealed on the decks of the {Lucky
Dragon}. When men a hundred miles from an explosion can be killed by
the silent touch of the bomb, the world suddenly becomes too small a
sphere for men to clutch the atom."[49]
But, in the midst of the controversy over the H-bomb test effects in
spring 1954, AEC Chairman Strauss assured the American public there
would be no significant impacts on the continental U.S. The "small
increase" in radiation, he said, was "far below the levels which could
be harmful in any way to human beings, animals and crops."[50]
The AEC chief's pronouncement provoked disbelief among independent
scientists. Particularly disturbed was Dr. A. H. Sturtevant, chairman
of the genetics department at the California Institute of Technology.
In an address to the Pacific division of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science, Sturtevant declared there was "no possible
escape from the conclusion that bombs already exploded will ultimately
produce numerous defective individuals." He further stated that an
estimated "1,800 deleterious mutations" had already resulted from
fallout.[51]
The AEC was stunned that the nuclear weapons testing program was
being openly questioned by a prominent scientist like Sturtevant.
By early 1955 the AEC released a written response to Sturtevant's
charges. Pointing to a "rather wide range of admissible opinion in
this subject," the AEC dismissed the geneticist's assessment.[52] The
AEC failed, however, to do any of its own calculations of genetic
mutations--thus ignoring the scientific basis of Sturtevant's
conclusions, which were derived from the work of the AEC's own
Division of Biology and Medicine.
Comparing fallout hazards with other sources of radiation like
medical X rays and "background radiation," the AEC concluded that
fallout "would not seriously affect the genetic constitutions of human
beings." With respect to the dangers to individuals from isotopes
like radioactive strontium and iodine, the governmental report claimed
that the levels of these nuclear products were too "insignificant" to
pose any problem.[53]
------
44. Ralph E. Lapp, {The Voyage of the Lucky Dragon} (New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1958), pp. 81-83.
45. Lapp, {Voyage of the Lucky Dragon}, p. 178.
46. Roger Rapoport, {The Great American Bomb Machine} (New York:
Ballantine, 1971), p. 59.
47. "Statement by Lewis L. Strauss, Chairman U.S. AEC," AEC release, March
31, 1954.
48. Lapp, {Voyage of the Lucky Dragon}, pp. 192-193.
49. Ibid., pp. 197-198.
50. "Statement by Lewis Strauss," March 31, 1954.
51. A. H. Sturtevant, "Social Implications of the Genetics of Man,"
{Science}, September 10, 1954, pp. 406-407.
52. "A Report by the United States Atomic Energy Commission on the Effects
of High Yield Nuclear Explosions," AEC release, February 15, 1955.
53. Ibid.
------
Continuing Tests in Nevada
The furor in Utah that had resulted from fallout two years earlier
prompted the AEC to exercise more caution as the continental atomic
testing program--which excluded H-bombs during its first decade--
restarted in February 1955 after a break of twenty months. But the
AEC immediately received counterpressure. In a letter written three
days after the first of fourteen nuclear shots slated for "Operation
Teapot" at the Nevada site, Senator Clinton Anderson of New Mexico
complained that he had been kept waiting for a week to witness the
test series' premier blast, as one postponement after another was
forced by poor weather conditions.[54]
Senator Anderson was in the midst of a personal feud with AEC
chairman Lewis L. Strauss.[55] As head of the congressional Joint
Committee on Atomic Energy, Anderson could cause trouble. "I do not
advocate taking any real risk with public health and safety," the
senator said. But his message was clear: If the AEC was willing to
let weather interrupt testing schedules at the Nevada Test Site, then
the tests might be banished to the far-flung Pacific.[56]
AEC commissioner Willard F. Libby fumed that confining tests to the
Pacific would "set the weapons program back a lot."[57] But
disregarding weather conditions in Nevada would bring more fallout to
the St. George area--"which they apparently always plaster," in the
words of AEC Chairman Strauss.[58]
"I have forgotten the number of people at St. George," Strauss said.
Informed that forty-five hundred people were living in the town,
Strauss ruminated, "So you can't evacuate them."[59]
"St. George is hypertensified . It is not a question of health or
safety with St. George, but a question of public relations," commented
AEC fallout expert Dr. John C. Bugher. "You remember the uproar at
St. George last series." After that experience, Dr. Bugher
recollected, "We regarded southern Utah as a forbidden zone for future
fallout in this series."[60]
But the AEC decided that the people of Utah were less important than
the atomic testing schedule. Former Rear Admiral Strauss, into his
second year as chairman, concurred with a suggestion by commissioner
Thomas Murray to "get on with the test."[61]
"I don't think we can change them at this stage of the game," said
Strauss, referring to Nevada testing criteria.[62]
A forty-three-kiloton blast, code-named Turk, proceeded as planned
at the Nevada Test Site. So did ten more blasts in the Teapot series,
totaling 114 more kilotons.
At an AEC meeting midway through Operation Teapot spirits seemed to
have improved. "People have got to learn to live with the facts of
life, and part of the facts of life are fallout," Commissioner Libby
said.[63]
"It is certainly all right they say if you don't live next door to
it," responded Chairman Strauss.[64]
"Or live under it," chimed in K. D. Nichols.[65]
Vowed Commissioner Murray: "We must not let anything interfere with
this series of tests--nothing."[66]
At the site about eight thousand troops--from the Army, Navy, Air
Force, and Marine Corps--participated in Operation Teapot, observing
from trenches officially described as being one and a half to five
miles from the atom bomb explosions. But Major Donald H. Anderson of
Northridge, California, a twenty-year veteran of the Air Force,
remembered being still closer--one thousand yards from ground zero--
when the nuclear shot Bee was fired on March 22, 1955. Formerly
trained as an instructor of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project
at the Sandia Base in Albuquerque, Anderson was among "about 200 or
300 of us" closest to the blast, listed at eight kilotons. "Upon
detonation, we were in trenches 1,000 yards from ground zero."[67]
After detonation, we had to dig our way out of the trenches
which had collapsed on us. For about 10 or 15 minutes, I was
blinded by the blast. . . . Then we were told we had to advance
forward from the trenches to a location where toilet paper was
lying on the ground. Not everybody who was in the trenches
(about 200 or 300 people) advanced to the toilet paper marker
which was about 200 or 300 yards from ground zero. About a
dozen other people and I went down to it all the way. Then, an
emergency jeep came up and an officer told us to get out of
there--we did not belong there. He took our names and told us
to report to an officer at camp. We had to go back for
decontamination testing at Camp Desert Rock about 9 a.m. We
reported to an officer who was threatening us with court martial
because we did what we were instructed to do! No action was
taken. Our film badges were not returned to us and we were not
advised of the amount of radiation we had received.
I believe it was the commander or his adjutant at Camp Desert
Rock who talked to us and threatened us with court martial. At
no time did they tell us there would be any possibility of
subsequent illness as a result of complying with their orders to
advance down to the toilet paper laid out on the ground. We
were close enough to see parts of the tower that had been
reduced to molten metal. . . . We were told that something went
wrong with the detonation--that it was larger than expected.[68]
Major Anderson later developed cancer, which he linked to "the
radiation exposure I received while in the military."[69]
An official report of the 1955 atomic exercises, issued by Marine
headquarters, declared that "the realism engendered by coming face-
to-face with an actual nuclear detonation adds a great deal to the
benefits derived, and augments the total fund of training and
experience of the Marine Corps."[70] As an additional note of
envisioned battlefield "realism" some servicemen sat in tanks, moving
toward the nuclear blast point after detonation--with radiation
readings up to twelve roentgens metered in the tanks.[71]
As usual Las Vegas newspapers presented the nuclear tests in
optimistic terms: "ATOMIC WARHEAD NEWEST YANK DEFENSE WEAPON";
"`BABY' A-BLAST MAY PROVIDE FACTS ON DEFENSE AGAINST ATOMIC ATTACK."
Often the news stories glorified anticipated military benefits, with
themes replayed by media across the country. In California the
{Oakland Tribune} announced "ATOM BLAST TESTS SMOKE SCREEN TO CURB
RADIATION." When the government unveiled a taller detonation tower-
-five hundred feet instead of the previous three-hundred-foot height-
-the {Las Vegas Review-Journal} reported, "Use of taller towers from
which atomic devices are detonated at the Nevada Test Site introduces
an added angle of safety to residents living outside the confines of
the Atomic Energy Commission's continental testing ground, nuclear
scientists believe."[72]
Military spokesmen continued their public reassurances. "The time
after a detonation of nuclear devices is a period of caution, but a
safe period if experienced personnel equipped with proper safeguards
are used," Major Earl R. Shappell, a radiological safety officer, told
reporters. "Our Army clearing teams can frequently move with impunity
into the general firing area within hours following a blast."[73] A
few days after Major Shappell's explanation the National Broadcasting
Company telecast its first TV coverage of an atomic bomb test.[74]
Meanwhile millions of American schoolchildren were being taught to
hide under desks in air-raid drills, as though such measures would
provide appreciable protection in case of nuclear attack. Imagery of
atomic holocaust became part of American life. According to authors
Douglas Miller and Marion Nowak in their study of the fifties, "For
kids, to whom the whole bomb-culture message was a thing to be inhaled
like air, defense security could not help but get garbled up with
terror."[75]
With few exceptions Americans remained frozen in silence as the
nuclear age progressed. It was only in the later years of the 1950s,
with Red-baiting on the wane and scientists beginning to speak out
about biological dangers of fallout, that implications of the bomb
were questioned.
Meanwhile, the Nevada testing continued, and atomic blasts became
fairly common sights for people living throughout the West. One
nuclear test explosion was visible from eleven western states.[76]
The thick fallout clouds mostly moved through the targeted downwind
corridors in rural areas of Nevada, northern Arizona, and Utah. But
sometimes, with shifting winds at various altitudes, large cities were
contaminated, as in March 1955 when an atomic shot sent radioactivity
directly to Las Vegas.
Within six hours of that explosion "the cloud dropped invisible bits
of matter that gave a total radiation of 174 milliroentgens in North
Las Vegas," reported the Associated Press, which usually did not
deviate from the official government perspective on nuclear events.
"Normal background radiation is 2 milliroentgens, but the Atomic
Energy Commission said the fallout was not harmful. The AEC has set a
safety minimum of 3.9 roentgens, or 3,900 milliroentgens, per year for
civilians offsite. Test personnel are allowed to absorb that much in
a 13-week period."[77] The {Las Vegas Review Journal} stated flatly:
"Fallout on Las Vegas and vicinity following this morning's detonation
was very low and without any effects on health." A front-page
follow-up article relayed the AEC's commendations for the "matter of
fact manner" in which Las Vegans responded to the fallout dusting.[78]
------
54. AEC Commissioners Meeting Minutes, February 23, 1955, pp. 117-118.
55. Rosenberg, {Atomic Soldiers,} p. 71.
56. AEC Commissioners Meeting Minutes, February 23, 1955, pp. 117-118.
57. Ibid., p. 119.
58. AEC Commissioners Meeting Minutes, March 14, 1955, p. 122.
59. AEC Commissioners Meeting Minutes, March 14, 1955, p. 115.
60. Ibid., pp. 115-116.
61. Ibid., pp. 116-117.
62. Ibid.
63. AEC Commissioners Meeting Minutes, March 14, 1955, p. 121.
64. Ibid
65. Ibid.
66. Ibid.
67. {Atomic Veterans' Newsletter}, spring 1980, p. 14.
68. Ibid.
69. Ibid.
70. U.S. Marine Corps, "Report of Exercise Desert Rock VI," 1955, p. V11-2.
71. Rosenberg, {Atomic Soldiers}, p. 71.
72. {Las Vegas Review-Journal}, March 29, 1955; {Las Vegas Sun}, March 13,
1955; {Oakland Tribune}, March 13, 1955; {Las Vegas Review-Journal},
March 11, 1955.
73. {Las Vegas Review-Journal}, March 27, 1955.
74. {Las Vegas Review-Journal}, March 29, 1955.
75. Miller and Nowak, {The Fifties}, p. 54. Added Miller and Nowak:
"Adults, more accomplished at psychological defense, had an easier time
of it. They could dodge the great fears and moral questions with more
deftness than their offspring."
76. {Las Vegas Sun}, March 13, 1955.
77. {Los Angeles Times}, Associated Press, March 23, 1955.
78. {Las Vegas Review-Journal}, March 22, and March 24, 1955.
------
The Fallout Debate
As the spring 1955 nuclear test series continued, a heated
controversy arose. Alarmed by increasing radiation in their home
state, two scientists from the University of Colorado Medical Center
went public. "For the first time in the history of the Nevada tests,
the upsurge in radioactivity measured here within a matter of hours
has become appreciable," said Dr. Ray R. Lanier, director of the
university's radiology department. University biophysics department
head Dr. Theodore Puck joined with Lanier in the public statement
issued March 12.[79]
Colorado's governor Edwin C. Johnson immediately asserted that the
two scientists "should be arrested," adding: "This is a phony report.
It will only alarm people. Someone has a screw loose someplace and I
intend to find out about it."[80] He termed their statements "part of
an organized . . . fright campaign."[81]
Meanwhile AEC media aides phoned Denver news outlets with a
statement that the "trenchant reading in Colorado had absolutely no
significance for public health."[82]
While insisting that "it is not our desire to alarm the public
needlessly," Dr. Lanier said, "we feel it is our duty" to sound a
warning. Drs. Lanier and Puck particularly infuriated the nuclear
testing establishment when they publicly stressed that gamma-ray
readings (and X-ray comparisons) did not provide the full health-
hazard picture. Said Dr. Puck: "The trouble with airborne
radioactive dust is that we breathe it into the lungs, where it may
lodge in direct contact with living tissue." Thus, he explained,
internal exposure from alpha or beta particles was "very different
from having it lodge on skin or clothing where it can be brushed or
washed off."[83]
The two Colorado scientists had dared to puncture the popularized
myth that Geiger counter readings told the whole radiation danger
story; that myth was based on the unspoken supposition that people
would not breathe. Dr. Lanier also pointed out the absence of any
"safe minimum below which danger to individuals or their unborn
descendants disappears. Or at least we do not know what it is."[84]
At the same time, more than a few scientists, particularly those not
on government payrolls, were voicing intensified concern about
cumulative fallout effects. Dr. M. Stanley Livingston, chairman of
the Federation of American Scientists and a physics professor at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, supported the embattled
Colorado scientists in a television interview. Livingston said
scientists were growing apprehensive "that we may soon reach a level
of radiation in the atmosphere which would be dangerous genetically to
the future of the race."[85]
But within the AEC the cold war made it very difficult for
scientists to question the testing program. Oppenheimer's banishment
had set a powerful example. "There developed what I consider to be a
strange psychological frame of mind," Dr. Karl Z. Morgan, director of
the Oak Ridge Health Physics Lab during that era, reflected in 1980.
"It became unpatriotic and perhaps unscientific to suggest that atomic
weapons testing might cause deaths throughout the world from fallout."
Morgan found many of his AEC colleagues holding "onto untenable and
extremely shallow arguments . . . comparisons with medical and natural
background exposures as if they were harmless."[86]
The press gave only limited coverage to scientists who challenged
the wisdom of atomic testing. Those complaining about radioactivity
were routinely accused of ignorance, hysteria, or involvement in
Communist manipulations.
The {Los Angeles Examiner} published a March 1955 column by
International News Service writer Jack Lotto, headlining it "ON YOUR
GUARD: REDS LAUNCH `SCARE DRIVE' AGAINST U.S. ATOMIC TESTS." "A big
Communist fear campaign to force Washington to stop all American
atomic hydrogen bomb tests erupted this past week," Lotto reported.
He repeated the persistent argument that during the past ten years the
radiation dose from the testing "has been about the same as the
exposure from one chest x-ray."[87]
In a {U.S. News & World Report} article called "The Facts About A-
Bomb Fallout," AEC Commissioner Willard Libby cited "evidence" from
AEC research which implied that bomb fallout would "not likely be at
all dangerous."[88] Although the article did not explicitly claim to
represent the AEC view, many scientists believed it had been approved
in advance by the AEC.
That article caused a flurry of written protests from prominent
scientists. Linus Pauling, a 1954 Nobel prize winner in chemistry,
complained vigorously to Commissioner Libby.[89] Another Nobel
laureate, geneticist Hermann Muller wrote to the AEC, saying that he
was "shocked" by the article.[90] Bruce Wallace, of the Cold Spring
Harbor Biological Laboratory, was "dismayed" that the AEC had
misinterpreted his work in the magazine piece.[91] Dr. Curt Stern, of
the University of California in Berkeley, warned the AEC that the
article would only serve to increase distrust of AEC credibility.[92]
Major newspapers echoed the AEC's argument in the debate. One
source of unequivocal disclaimers was nationally syndicated
commentator David Lawrence. "Evidence of a world-wide propaganda is
accumulating. Many persons are innocently being duped by it and some
well-meaning scientists and other persons are playing the Communist
game unwittingly by exaggerating the importance of radioactive
substances known as `fallout,'" Lawrence wrote in spring 1955. "The
truth is there isn't the slightest proof of any kind that the
`fallout' as a result of tests in Nevada has ever affected any human
being anywhere outside the testing ground itself."[93]
"The Nevada tests are being conducted for a humanitarian purpose--to
determine the best ways to help civilian defense--and not to develop
stronger weapons of war," Lawrence contended authoritatively in
another column. "The big bombs are not tested in this country, but in
ocean areas far away from this continent. The Communist drive,
however, is to stop all tests, and many persons are being duped by the
campaign into thinking all the tests held in Nevada are injurious and
will hurt future generations. There isn't a word of truth in that
propaganda."[94]
But profound issues of long-term atomic fallout effects could not be
so easily dismissed.
------
79. {Los Angeles Examiner}, March 13, 1955; {Los Angeles Times}, March 13,
1955.
80. {Los Angeles Examiner}, March 13, 1955.
81. {Albuquerque Journal}, March 22, 1955.
82. {Los Angeles Examiner}, March 13, 1955.
83. Ibid.
84. Ibid.
85. {Albuquerque Journal}, March 14, 1955.
86. Karl Z. Morgan, "History of Developments in Nuclear Safety and the
Development of International Standards," unpublished article submitted
to Energy Department's Office of Consumer Affairs, December 1980, p. 2.
87. {Los Angeles Examiner}, March 24, 1955.
88. {US News & World Report}, March 25, 1955, pp. 21-26.
89. Linus Pauling to Willard Libby, March 30, 1955, Historian's Office,
U.S. Department of Energy.
90. Hermann Muller to E. Green, March 29, 1955, A. H. Sturtevant Papers,
California Institute of Technology, AHS-CIT, Archives Box 11, Folder 3.
91. Bruce Wallace to Hermann Muller, April 5, 1955, AHS-CIT, Archives Box
11,. Folder 3.
92. Curt Stern to John Bugher, March 28, 1955, GWB/BDR-CIT, Archives Box
96, Folder 1.
93. {Washington Post}, March 1955.
94. {Chicago Daily News}, March 25, 1955.
------
Cancer, Genetics, and Fallout
In the autumn of 1955 AEC Chairman Strauss was caught suppressing a
scientific paper by Hermann Muller on the genetic effects of
radiation. In 1927 Muller had been the first to discover that
exposure of plants and animals to X rays causes an increase in genetic
mutations. Twenty years later he received the Nobel prize for his
work in genetics.
Muller's 1955 paper assessed the worldwide fallout exposure to
people's gonads and the genetic damage this could cause. He submitted
it for presentation at the first United Nations meeting on "peaceful
uses of the atom," scheduled for Geneva later that year. In May the
AEC accepted Muller's abstract. When he tried to submit his full
paper in July, the renowned geneticist was told that it had been taken
out of the program by the U.N. because of "space limitations."
Two months later {The Washington Post} revealed that the AEC, not
the U.N. had excised Muller's paper. Then the AEC admitted to
blocking the paper because Muller had mentioned the Hiroshima bombing,
a subject "definitely inadmissible" at a conference about the
"peaceful" uses of atomic energy. As AEC chairman, Strauss apologized
for the "regrettable snafu" and promised to publish Muller's paper in
printed proceedings of the event. A few weeks afterward, Strauss
stated on the TV show {Face the Nation} that "some irresponsible
statements that had been made on the subject were liquidated in the
course of the conference."[95]
The Muller incident so enraged George Beadle, president of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, that he wrote a
lengthy editorial in {Science} magazine titled "Liquidating Unpopular
Opinion."[96] Prior to publication of his essay, Beadle sent a draft
to Gerard Piel, publisher of {Scientific American}. After reading
both the draft and the final version, which had been toned down, Piel
wrote back remarking on "what skulking deceit and dishonesty had been
involved in Admiral Strauss' handling of the matter."[97]
Beadle's {Science} editorial asserted that "Chairman Strauss has
consistently maintained that fallout from tests of nuclear weapons
have been so low that they could not bring harm to human beings.
Muller has repeatedly presented reasons for believing such complacency
to be unjustified . . . could it be that Muller's persistence in
disagreeing with the chairman of the Commission was a factor in
barring his report?"[98]
By the late summer of 1956 the issue of fallout was being covered on
nation-wide television at the Democratic National Convention. The
Democratic Party was campaigning to halt H-bomb tests. Presidential
candidate Adlai Stevenson, relying on the information of AEC critics,
cited the genetic and strontium 90 hazards from tests. Nuclear
testing advocates Edward Teller and Ernest O. Lawrence responded with
a joint statement depicting radioactive fallout as
"insignificant."[99]
Institutional differences over dangers of fallout became quite clear
during the election. On one side was the AEC and its scientists, such
as Commissioner Willard Libby, Shields Warren, John Bugher, Teller,
and Lawrence. The other side included several prominent scientists
from the California Institute of Technology--Linus Pauling, E. B.
Lewis, A. H. Sturtevant, and George Beadle. Although Stevenson lost
the election, his campaign provided a national forum for the fallout
debate.
Another event in 1956 also had major impact. British physician
Alice Stewart found the first firm evidence that low-level radiation
causes cancer in human beings. "At the time," Dr. Stewart told us,
"radiologists considered low-level radiation to be in the range of
fifty to one hundred rems. We were able to demonstrate that the
flicker from one X-ray photograph to a fetus could initiate a cancer.
This was a tiny fraction of the amount considered safe."[100]
Stewart's findings were received with disbelief by radiologists and
the international nuclear industry. If she was correct, then
physicians were causing cancer among children--and the nuclear
industry was doing the same.
In 1958 Stewart and her colleagues at England's Oxford University
published their classic paper on effects of fetal X rays, now one of
the most often cited studies in the world.[101] Stewart found that X
rays during the first three months of pregnancy increased the risk of
cancer by ten times. With each X ray taken, there would be an
increase in the cancer risk.
In June 1957 Linus Pauling estimated in a {Foreign Policy Bulletin}
article that ten thousand persons had died or were dying from leukemia
because of nuclear tests.[102] A month earlier Pauling's colleague E.
B. Lewis had published a more detailed analysis in {Science}.[103]
Using four sets of data, Lewis showed that there was no safe level of
exposure; leukemia incidence seemed to be directly proportionate to
the amount of the radiation dose. These articles documented the
absence of any "safe" dose of radiation. And the pair of C.I.T.
scientists also broke new ground by estimating the number of deaths
from strontium 90 fallout.
The AEC countered Lewis in a later article in {Science} by Austin
Brues, the commission's director of Biology and Medicine. Brues
argued that the evidence wasn't strong enough to support Pauling or
Lewis, calling their approach one of "superficial simplicity."
Instead, Brues insisted, facts corroborated the existence of a
"threshold" dose of radiation, below which no biological damage would
occur.[104]
The Joint Committee on Atomic Energy hearings in 1957 proved to be a
watershed in the fallout debate. Dr. Ralph Lapp cut short a trip to
Japan to appear before the committee. His opening presentation
pointed to "reckless and non-substantiated statements" made by the
AEC.[105] He called attention to claims by the AEC's New York Health
and Safety Lab chief Merrill Eisenbud, who had announced that "the
total fallout to date from all tests would have to be multiplied by a
million to produce visible deleterious effects in areas close to the
explosion itself."[106]
Eisenbud took the stand in his defense, putting qualifications on
his earlier statement. Eisenbud claimed to have been "talking about
the immediate gamma radiation from the fallout which occurs in the
eastern United States within a matter of a day or so after detonation
in Nevada." He then accused Lapp of taking his statement "out of
context."[107]
Lapp quickly responded from the audience by multiplying the amounts
of radiation exposure calculated by Eisenbud to be present in the
Troy/Albany area after the Simon bomb test in 1953 by a million times.
It amounted to an average exposure of ten thousand roentgens. Stunned
by this calculation, Senator Clinton Anderson asked if such a dose
"would kill everybody in sight." Eisenbud, red-faced, answered with a
meek "Yes."[108]
In 1958 the U.S. tested sixty-four weapons aboveground, the Soviet
Union twenty-four, and Britain five. This was the highest rate since
the first tests began.[109] After two and a half years a U.N. study
by eighty-seven scientists confirmed allegations by critics of A-
tests.[110]
Meanwhile strontium 90 levels in milk were rising dramatically,
according to the AEC's own data. The northern Great Plains--
particularly the Red River Valley dividing North Dakota and
Minnesota--were fast becoming the most strontium-90-contaminated area
in North America. Strontium 90 in the region's milk supply was far in
excess of the AEC's own safe limit for human consumption.[111]
Reacting to the stepped-up nuclear testing, the National Council on
Radiation Protection (NCRP) recommended doubling the "maximum
permissible body burden" of strontium 90.[112] Other test advocates
like Edward Teller began to contend publicly that radiation from
fallout "might be slightly beneficial or have no effect at all."[113]
During this period Dr. Karl Z. Morgan attended an NCRP meeting where
Teller gave a speech about fallout. "To my amazement, and certainly
to the amazement of others, Ed [Teller] was claiming that since
naturally occurring radiation played a part in the evolutionary
process, the increase in fallout would simply speed up the
evolution."[114] Was Teller speculating that fallout would weed out
the weak in the society to enhance the development of a superrace?
Linus Pauling was the first to sound the alarm concerning the
dangers of carbon 14. This radioactive form of carbon exists in
nature and is easily absorbed by plants and people. But the
incremental increase of carbon 14 from test fallout concerned
Pauling.[115] By 1958 he estimated that carbon 14 from "the bomb
tests . . . will ultimately produce about one million seriously
defective children and about two million embryonic and neonatal
deaths, and will cause many millions of people to suffer from minor
heredity defects."[116]
Pauling and others realized that it was not enough to exchange
scientific papers with the AEC in order to stop the continuing
radioactive fallout from testing. The circle of scientists necessary
to alert the people of the U.S. and the world had to become much
larger.
On April 23, 1957, Nobel peace prize winner Albert Schweitzer made a
radio speech that inspired Pauling to take a first important step in
recruiting scientists of the world. Schweitzer concluded his speech
by saying that "the end of further experiments with atom bombs would
be like early sunrays of hope longed for by suffering humanity."[117]
AEC Commissioner Willard Libby responded with the standard AEC line:
"Exposures from fallout are very much smaller than those which would
be required to produce observable effects in the population."[118]
Three weeks after Schweitzer's speech Pauling addressed an audience
at Washington University in St. Louis, the headquarters of the
Committee for Nuclear Information--an active antitesting organization
recently cofounded by Dr. Barry Commoner. That afternoon Pauling sat
down with Commoner and Edward Condon of the committee and told them of
his idea for a petition campaign to enlist American scientists in
opposition to nuclear testing. With their help Pauling drafted "An
Appeal by American Scientists to the Governments and People of the
World," urging that "an international agreement to stop testing of
nuclear bombs be made now."[119]
"Each nuclear test spreads the added burden of radioactive elements
over every part of the world," read the petition. "Each added amount
of radiation causes damage to the health of human beings all over the
world and causes damage to the pool of human germ plasm such as to
lead to an increase in the number of seriously defective children that
will be born in future generations . . ."[120] Within two weeks the
signatures of two thousand American scientists were collected and
released in the midst of the 1957 hearings of the Joint Committee on
Atomic Energy.
President Eisenhower, in a press conference shortly after Pauling
publicized his appeal, implied that the scientists' petition was the
work of an "organization" that didn't necessarily have the best
interests of the nation in mind. When later asked to clarify his
statement, Eisenhower backed off and replied, "I said that there does
seem to be an organization behind it. I didn't say a wicked
organization."[121]
Two days later Pauling told a reporter that "I would like to see
signatures of thousands of Russian scientists, of scientists of all
countries of the world to this appeal." The response was an immediate
outpouring of signatures from scientists all over the globe. By
January 1958 Pauling had collected 11,021 signatures from 50 nations-
-including 216 from the Soviet Union, 701 from Britain, and 1,161 from
Japan.[122] Pauling personally delivered the petition to the United
Nations secretary general, Dag Hammarskjold, on January 15, 1958. By
the end of the year the U.S. and the Soviet Union agreed to a
voluntary moratorium on testing--a move to enhance negotiations for a
test ban treaty.
Attacks against Pauling and his so-called "organization"
intensified. Syndicated columnist Fulton Lewis, Jr., estimated that
such a petition drive would have cost $100,000, and he demanded to
know who had funded the campaign.[123]
The Nobel prize winner was called before the House Un-American
Activities Committee. According to Pauling, "the cost of gathering
the 7,500 signatures of scientists outside the U.S. amounted to about
$250.00 . . . for stationery, postage and secretarial help. . . . My
wife and I have expended altogether about $600 on the appeal and
petition."[124] Pauling's "organization" consisted of his wife and a
circle of friends.
Congress was unable to prove that Pauling's petition was a Communist
conspiracy. But Pauling's detractors in the government assured that
he would no longer receive a penny of federal money for his research.
More than two decades later Pauling had received no federal government
funds for his work. However in 1962 Pauling received a second Nobel
prize--this one the peace prize for his efforts to end nuclear
testing.
Antibomb protests during the late fifties included small-scale sit-
ins at missile bases, and refusals to participate in New York City
air-raid drills. The most dramatic civil disobedience against nuclear
explosions occurred as activists attempted to steer their ships into
the Marshall Islands test zones. In 1958 four pacifists in a thirty-
foot ketch--christened the {Golden Rule}--tried to set sail from
Hawaii for Eniwetok; they were arrested by the U.S. Coast Guard. A
similar expedition the same year, by the crew of the {Phoenix,} sailed
toward the Bikini testing area; U.S. authorities halted that
demonstration as well.[125]
Other tactics against the nuclear tests took hold, widening the
pressure campaign participation beyond scientific experts and
pacifists. Less than a year after its founding in November 1957, the
National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) had enlisted 130
chapters and twenty-five thousand members in opposition to the
tests.[126]
With public mistrust of the AEC deepening, near the end of his
presidency Dwight Eisenhower created the Federal Radiation Council to
"advise the president with respect to radiation matters." Although
appearing to represent public-health interests, the FRC was dominated
by advocates of nuclear testing. Two out of six members were from
the AEC and Department of Defense. The council's director, Paul
Tompkins, came directly from the nuclear weapons program. One of the
first acts of the council was to increase the amount of sanctioned
strontium 90 exposures from testing by six times.[127]
On September 1, 1961, during the height of tensions over Berlin, the
voluntary moratorium on testing was broken by the Soviet Union. The
U.S. followed suit by resuming atomic tests later that month. During
the next year the two countries conducted the most intense series of
aboveground tests in history.[128] In 1962 more than one hundred
nuclear weapons exploded and sent radiation into the atmosphere. By
the summer of 1962, iodine 131 in milk across the United States was
reaching dangerous levels.
As fallout quantities approached "safe" governmental limits, the AEC
looked to the Federal Radiation Council for help. By September 1962
the council announced that the U.S. Government's radiation guidelines
didn't apply to fallout[129]--in essence, giving the AEC a blank check
to contaminate the earth as it deemed necessary. "I-131 doses from
weapons testing conducted through 1962 have not caused undue risk to
health," the council contended.[130] Two years later the panel
secretly raised its guidelines for radioactive iodine by a factor of
twenty, to accommodate "underground" nuclear tests.[131]
The Federal Radiation Council's director, Paul Tompkins, justified
the increase by claiming "we had to take our choice between that much
iodine or a predictable level of malnutrition from pricing the milk
off the market. We made the choice . . ."[132]
In St. Louis, where fallout readings were very high during the 1962
tests, the Committee for Nuclear Information vocally denounced the
persisting nuclear blasts. In an effort to blunt the criticisms the
AEC transported a group of children from St. Louis to New York and
measured them for radioactive iodine. The AEC's Merrill Eisenbud
reported that "tests completed at the New York University Medical
Center indicate that the amount of radioactive iodine entering the
thyroid glands of children has not approached the danger level."[133]
Eisenbud did not mention that iodine 131 has an eight-day half-life.
By the time the children reached New York and were analyzed, almost
all of the radioactivity had decayed--with the damage already done in
the meantime.
In 1960, fifteen years after the first nuclear testing, the AEC had
finally established a Fallout Studies Branch. Harold Knapp was
working in the AEC general manager's office at the time. Asked to
join the Fallout Studies Branch in 1962, Knapp's first task was to
review the AEC's rebuttal to a series of criticisms by Ralph Lapp.
Knapp found that the rejoinder, written by the prestigious General
Advisory Committee of the AEC, "didn't answer anything" and was a
"wholly inadequate response."[134] Particularly, Knapp found that the
issue of radioactive "hot spots" raised by Lapp deserved further
exploration.
AEC officials were continuing to assume uniform distribution of
fallout--a woefully inaccurate assumption, ignoring variations in
fallout patterns, owing to weather conditions and other factors. "For
three months I held them off on a daily basis," while working to come
up with a better response, Knapp recollected in a 1981 interview.[135]
He found evidence that agreed with Lapp's claims about hot spots. The
paper, sent to the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, elicited praise
for its candor.
Knapp decided to make a systematic and detailed analysis of the
problem of fallout by first looking at radioactive iodine. To his
surprise "no systematic approach to the study of fallout had been done
before." The monitoring data were "spotty," and evidently there was
no real consistent approach to the collection of radiation samples.
"They had inadequate measuring techniques. It takes four days for
the radioiodine to build up to a maximum in milk. Within two weeks
everything is gone. Either they would analyze the sample too soon or
wait too long."[136]
In examining milk data for the 1953 tests, Knapp discovered, "by pot
luck someone was measuring the right thing at the right time" for St.
George, Utah. Knapp estimated that during the 1950s the dose to the
thyroid from iodine 131 in cow's milk was ten times the Federal
Radiation Council standards.[137]
Knapp's report was sent upstairs to Charles Dunham, director of the
AEC's Division of Biology and Medicine. It was immediately
classified.[138] Dunham sent the paper to Gordon Dunning, AEC deputy
director for operational safety, who suggested that a special AEC
committee, composed of "qualified scientists with specialized
backgrounds,"[139] be established to comment on the report.
Four of five reviewers favorably commented on Knapp's paper and
urged its release. The only unfavorable review came from the Nevada
Test Site's off-site radiological safety officer, Oliver R.
Placak.[140] Over Dunning's objections, the AEC assistant general
manager for research, Spoford English, reluctantly okayed release of
the Knapp report.
The basic point of Knapp's research was that after more than ten
years of atomic weapons testing at the Nevada site, the AEC had never
actually bothered to methodically assess the impact of fallout on
people living nearby. The Knapp report, issued in early 1963, warned
that "At the Nevada Test Site, over 1,000 kilotons equivalent of
Iodine-131 were released before we obtained any reliable data on
Iodine-131 in milk in off-site communities following deposition from
specific shots." The amount was more than five thousand times as much
as had been released at a 1957 accident at the British reactor at
Windscale, which caused a national emergency to be declared because of
milk contamination.[141]
The broad outlines of the fallout disaster came into focus even
while atmospheric nuclear testing persisted. Two decades later Robert
Minogue, research director for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told
us: "High AEC officials knew very well the biological effects of
low-level radiation in the 1950s. They can't use ignorance as an
excuse."[142] But, as grim evidence mounted, the nuclear policymakers
tried to keep the truth from the public.
------
95. Kopp, "Debate over Fallout Hazards," p. 412.
96. George W. Beadle, "Liquidating Unpopular Opinion," {Science}, October
28, 1955, p. 813.
97. Kopp, "Debate over Fallout Hazards," p. 412.
98. Beadle, "Liquidating Unpopular Opinion," p. 813.
99. {New York Times}, June 21, 1956.
100. Alice Stewart, interview, November 1980.
101. Alice M. Stewart, et al., "A Survey of Childhood Malignancies,"
{British Medical Journal} (1958): 1495-1508.
102. Linus Pauling, "How Dangerous Is Radioactive Fallout?" {Foreign Policy
Bulletin}, June 15, 1957, p. 149.
103. E. B. Lewis, "Leukemia and Ionizing Radiation," {Science}, May 17,
1957, pp. 965-972.
104. Austin Brues, "Critique of the Linear Theory of Carcinogenesis,"
{Science}, September 26, 1958, pp. 693-699.
105. H. Peter Metzger, {The Atomic Establishment} (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1972), pp. 97-98.
106. New York {Daily News}, March 20, 1955.
107. Metzger, {Atomic Establishment}, pp. 97-98.
108. Ibid.
109. J. A. Young and R. W. Perkins, "Fallout from Nuclear Testing--A
Position Paper with Recommendations to the EPA," Battelle Pacific
Northwest Laboratories, Richland, Washington, September 19, 1979,
Table 1.
110. United Nations, "United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of
Atomic Radiation, 1958 Report," New York. See also {New York Times},
August 11, 1958.
111. AEC, "Strontium Program Quarterly Report," New York Operations Office,
February 24, 1959.
112. Metzger, {Atomic Establishment}, p. 99.
113. Edward Teller, "The Compelling Need for Tests," {Life}, February 10,
1958, pp. 64-66.
114. Karl Z. Morgan, interview, November 1980.
115. Vast amounts of carbon 14 are produced by hydrogen bombs and large
nuclear reactors. A beta-emitter with a half-life of about five
thousand years, carbon 14, can be incorporated into the DNA of cells,
creating significant biological damage. Another of the worrisome
fallout isotopes is strontium 90, which is chemically similar to the
nutrient calcium and therefore is taken up in soil, plants, and
animals, as calcium is. The principal "pathway" for radioactive
strontium is the ingestion of contaminated food, particularly milk,
leafy vegetables, fruit, and root vegetables. Once it enters the body,
strontium eventually lodges in the bone, particularly the growing bone
tissue of children, where half of it remains for twenty-eight years.
Once inside the bone tissue it emits beta particles, which can
eventually lead to such diseases as leukemia or bone-marrow cancer.
116. Linus Pauling, {No More War} (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1958), pp. 74-75.
117. Albert Schweitzer, "A Declaration of Conscience," {Saturday Review},
May 18, 1957, pp. 17-20.
118. Pauling, {No More War}, p. 169.
119. Ibid., p. 160.
120. Ibid.
121. Ibid., p. 172.
122. Ibid., pp. 173, 174-178.
123. Ibid., p. 171. (The Fulton Lewis, Jr., broadcast was on February 12,
1958.)
124. Ibid., p. 175.
125. Miller and Nowak, {The Fifties}, pp. 63, 80, 413.
126. Ibid., p. 413.
127. {Background Material for the Development of Radiation Standards},
Federal Radiation Council Report No. 2 (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1961). (Paul Tompkins was formerly deputy
director of the AEC's Office of Radiation Standards.)
128. Young and Perkins, "Fallout from Nuclear Testing," September 19, 1979.
129. {Estimates and Evaluation of Fallout in the United States from Nuclear
Weapons Testing Conducted Through 1962}, Federal Radiation Council
Report No. 4 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office,
1963).
130. {New York Times}, September 18, 1962.
131. Federal Radiation Council Report No. 5 (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1964).
132. U.S. Congress, House and Senate Joint Committee on Atomic Energy,
{Environmental Effects of Producing Electric Power}, (91st Cong., 1st
sess.), October-November 1969, Part 1, p. 409.
133. Metzger, {Atomic Establishment}, p. 107.
134. Harold Knapp, interview, February 1981.
135. Ibid.
136. Ibid.
137. Ibid.
138. Charles L. Dunham, "Draft Document Average and Above Average Doses to
the Thyroid of Children in the United States from Radioiodine from
Nuclear Weapons Tests," AEC Memo, October 24, 1962, files of House of
Representatives Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and investigations,
Washington, D.C.
139. Gordon Dunning to N. H. Woodruff, AEC Memo Re: Knapp Paper, files of
House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
140. U.S. Congress, House and Senate Joint Committee on Atomic Energy,
{Fallout, Radiation Standards and Countermeasures}, (88th Cong., 1st
sess.), August 1963, Part 2, pp. 914-1082.
141. Harold Knapp, "Observed Relations Between Deposition Level of Fresh
Fission Products from Nevada Tests and Resulting Levels of I-131 in
Fresh Milk," AEC Report, March 1, 1963, files of House Subcommittee
on Oversight and Investigations.
142. Robert Minogue, interview, February 1981.
------
[part 6 of 18]
5
Continued Testing: Tragic Repetitions
While the fallout debate raged during the mid-1950s, the U.S. nuclear
weapons testing program continued to escalate. American servicemen
and civilians were, more than ever, in the radioactive line of fire.
The government gave scant priority to the health and safety of its own
citizens.
The practice of exploding atomic weapons underwater was a case in
point.
The first time the United States set off an atom bomb beneath the
ocean surface, at the 1946 Baker test in the shallow Bikini lagoon,
the military vessels had been shellacked with unexpectedly tenacious,
and long-lived, radioactivity. The U.S. Government scuttled plans for
a follow-up deep-water explosion to climax the first series of atomic
tests at Bikini.
There was no official acknowledgment that dangers of sub-ocean-
surface nuclear explosions had prompted the indefinite
postponement.[1] However, an analysis published in {Science Digest}
in summer 1947 said such detonations involve "some highly
unpredictable phenomena." In fact, remarked author John W. Campbell,
"no one has the slightest idea of what might happen if an atomic bomb
were set off at a depth of half a mile in sea water."[2]
The Atomic Energy Commission, in a report to the National Security
Resources Board, later conceded that "if a bomb is exploded in water,
such as the [1946] Test Baker at Bikini, there will be considerable
amounts of residual radioactivity, depending upon wind, currents,
tides, and the size of the body of water."[3]
American military officers, briefed by the Armed Forces Special
Weapons Project during the late 1940s, were warned that underwater
nuclear tests entailed special risks. The secret handbook used in the
course cautioned that radioactive mist from an underwater nuclear
blast could be expected to spray "serious contamination over a large
area."[4]
On pages marked "RESTRICTED" the government's own experts elaborated
on the dangers. Dr. Herbert Scoville, Jr., who later became deputy
director of the Central Intelligence Agency, wrote: "In an underwater
detonation the nuclear radiation effects are quite different from
those resulting from an air burst and are of considerably greater
magnitude." Scoville recalled that the only underwater nuclear test
up until that time, in the lagoon at Bikini, had left enormous
quantities of radioactivity--"estimated to be equivalent to thousands
of tons of radium shortly after the detonation. This is a billion
times the radioactivity from a gram of radium. Such is the truly
fantastic radioactivity associated with an atomic bomb detonation."[5]
And, Scoville pointed out, in Bikini's lagoon "intensities above
tolerance were measured for almost a week." Even "nontarget vessels"
were severely contaminated.[6]
But nine years later the United States exploded a thirty-kiloton
nuclear bomb two thousand feet below the surface of the Pacific
Ocean--just five hundred miles southwest of San Diego.[7]
------
1. Rather, the official explanation as {United States News} reported it
was that the deep-water explosion set for Bikini was axed "chiefly
because of the danger to military security in tying up the needed
technical man power and equipment at this time." ({United States
News}, September 20, 1946, p. 19.)
2. John W. Campbell, "Why Atom Test 3 Was Canceled," {Science Digest},
July 1947, p 7.
3. {The H Bomb}, p. 35.
4. Dr. Herbert Scoville, Jr., "Nuclear Radiation Effects of Atomic Bomb
Detonations," "Medical Indoctrination Course," Armed Forces Special
Weapons Project, Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C., undated, late
1940s, p. 4.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. U.S. DOD, {Prototype Report, DOD Personnel Participation, Operation
Wigwam} (Washington, D.C.: Defense Nuclear Agency, 1980), p. 12.
Wigwam blast location was 28 degrees 44 minutes north latitude and 126
degrees 16 minutes west longitude.
------
Wigwam
For those who heard about the 1955 deep-water test ahead of time, it
didn't sound like much to worry about. Government public-relations
specialists saw to that. In the five months between President
Eisenhower's approval of the detonation and the day it actually
occurred, Pentagon image-makers busily prepared for the unusual
nuclear blast, tagged "Operation Wigwam."
About sixty-five hundred people, almost all of them servicemen, were
scheduled to be there, so secrecy was out of the question. But the
AEC barred news correspondents from observing Operation Wigwam. And,
although the bomb was thirty kilotons--more than twice the size of the
Hiroshima atomic weapon--the government succeeded in depicting it as
rather small. The {San Diego Evening Tribune} informed its readers
that the Wigwam bomb was "thought to have had an energy equivalent of
1 to 5 kilotons, certainly smaller than 20 kt."[8]
Internal government documents about Operation Wigwam remained
classified for more than twenty years. In 1980 the California-based
Center for Investigative Reporting was able to study official records
and films of the underwater test. The team of journalists concluded
that "the planners' major concerns were for the scientific and
military results of the test; concern for the possible hazards facing
the thousands of men stationed at the blast site appears to have been
secondary."[9]
When the A-bomb exploded on May 14, 1955, it sent huge shock waves
and gigantic walls of seawater at thirty ships with more than six
thousand servicemen aboard--many of whom had no idea they were
participating in an atomic test. A confidential document declared
that the men were subjected to "extremely hazardous respiratory
conditions."[10] And the Center for Investigative Reporting found
that nearly 40 percent of interviewed Operation Wigwam veterans
recalled having no radiation-detection badges during the nuclear
test.[11] Out of thirty-five Wigwam veterans located, seventeen had
illnesses they attributed to radiation exposure during the blast.[12]
Twenty-four years after the Wigwam test Elroy L. Runnels faced
television cameras in Honolulu and remembered: "We weren't told
anything of the . . . gravity of the situation."[13] Two days after
Runnels's filmed statement he was dead--a leukemia victim. He had
been seventeen years old while aboard the U.S.S. {Moctobi} in the
Operation Wigwam armada.
One of Runnels's last efforts, from his deathbed in late summer of
1979, was to file a class action lawsuit against the U.S. Government,
charging it intentionally endangered him and the other servicemen
involved in Operation Wigwam. And because the government continued to
stay mum about possible risks, Runnels maintained, his leukemia
"festered undetected until it had advanced to an acute, severely
debilitating state."[14]
Elroy Runnels's charges exposed basic inconsistencies in the
government's accounts of the nuclear test. Despite the Navy's
contention that no servicemen were closer than five miles to the
blast, the logs of Runnels's ship showed it as being well under a mile
from the bomb detonation.[15] He was not informed that he had
participated in a nuclear test until several weeks after Operation
Wigwam was over.[16]
Nor was Operation Wigwam the last American underwater nuclear
explosion. In the summer of 1958 two nuclear blasts went off beneath
the sea at Eniwetok. And on May 11, 1962, a test code-named Swordfish
exploded with a force of twenty kilotons, under the Pacific Ocean at a
spot 360 miles southwest of San Diego. About five thousand Navy
servicemen were at the Swordfish test, which subjected them to what
the Defense Nuclear Agency has termed "extremely low-yield"
radiation.[17]
For the most part America's nuclear testers were content to detonate
new warheads above sea level in the Pacific Ocean. In 1958--a dozen
years after the first atomic test in the Marshall Islands--the United
States was exploding massive thermonuclear (hydrogen) bombs amidst
those scenic isles. One Eniwetok blast, dubbed Oak, went off with a
force of 8.9 megatons on June 28, 1958. Two months later the last
nuclear weapons test occurred in the Marshall Islands.
The Pentagon moved on to other parts of the Pacific Ocean--Christmas
Island and Johnson Island areas--where in 1962 thousands more American
servicemen were exposed to nuclear test radiation.[18] Over a span of
more than sixteen years, beginning with Operation Crossroads in 1946,
the United States exploded 106 nuclear weapons in various parts of the
Pacific.
------
8. Dan Noyes, Maureen O'Neill, David Weir, "Operation Wigwam," {New West},
December 1, 1980, p. 28.
9. Ibid., p. 27.
10. Ibid., p. 29.
11. ABC-TV, {20/20} program broadcast, March 5, 1981, transcript p. 7.
12. Ibid., p. 6.
13. Ibid., p. 3.
14. {Honolulu Star-Bulletin}, September 4, 1979.
15. {San Francisco Chronicle}, United Press International, September 7,
1979.
16. {Honolulu Advertiser}, September 7, 1979.
17. {The Oregonian}, Associated Press, December 13, 1979.
18. Among the megaton-range explosions at Johnson Island was the
1.4-megaton Starfish Prime blast set off via rocket at an altitude of
248 miles on July 8, 1962. "For some time thereafter," {Science}
magazine reported nineteen years later, "physicists puzzled over a
resulting series of odd occurrences. Some 800 miles away in Hawaii,
streetlights had failed, burglar alarms had rung, and circuit breakers
had popped open in power lines. Today, the mysterious agent is known
as electromagnetic pulse (EMP). Physicists say a single nuclear
detonation in near space would cover vast stretches of the earth with
an EMP of 50,000 volts per meter." A few such nuclear detonations
could shut down electrical power grids and communications systems for
thousands of miles around. (William J. Broad, "Nuclear Pulse (1):
Awakening to the Chaos Factor," {Science}, May 29, 1981, pp. 1009-1012.)
------
The "Clean" Bomb
At the Nevada Test Site atmospheric nuclear bomb tests continued
until mid-1962.[19] Leukemia and cancer deaths rose noticeably as
mushroom clouds continued to darken the horizon.
For residents downwind, radioactive fallout--as AEC Commissioner
Willard Libby had predicted in closed session--had indeed become a
fact of life. Living in rural range lands of Nevada's Railroad Valley
north of the test site, Martin Bardoli was just beginning elementary
school in 1956 when he was diagnosed with leukemia. He died before
the end of the year.[20] Believing the fallout clouds were
responsible, Martin's parents circulated a petition and sent it to
their senators and the Atomic Energy Commission.
In a responding letter Senator George Malone warned against alarmism
about fallout. And, the senator added, "it is not impossible to
suppose that some of the `scare' stories are Communist inspired."[21]
AEC chairman Lewis Strauss replied by quoting former President
Truman: "`Let us keep our sense of proportion in the matter of
radioactive fallout. Of course, we want to keep the fallout in our
tests to the absolute minimum, and we are learning to do just that.
But the dangers that might occur from the fallout involve a small
sacrifice when compared to the infinitely greater evil of the use of
nuclear bombs in war.'"[22] Such reasoning did not convince the
bereaved parents.
Health matters remained low priority for the nation's nuclear
weapons testers. When the AEC's Advisory Committee on Biology and
Medicine convened in January 1957, panelists discussed how best to
counter public statements being made by independent scientists failing
to toe the government line on fallout dangers.[23]
Two months later the AEC distributed its assurances-filled {Atomic
Tests in Nevada} booklet to thousands of downwind residents.[24] With
two dozen or so atomic explosions during Operation Plumbbob slated to
begin soon at the Nevada site, new methods of cultivating trust among
residents went into effect.
Federal administrators discovered that "good public relations in the
off-site area were more difficult to maintain" than during the test
series two years earlier, an in-house government report lamented. But
the U.S. Government's evaluators had some encouraging news.
Innovations for gaining the confidence of residents seemed to pay off.
"The single fact that off-site monitors (many with families) lived in
communities went a long way in establishing good public
relations."[25]
Amid customary heavy and laudatory publicity American troops
maneuvered beneath mushroom clouds of the 1957 tests.
Stationed in southern Nevada, Marine Major Charles Broudy placed a
long-distance call to his wife on July 4, 1957. Excitement and
urgency in her husband's voice were apparent to Pat Broudy as she
listened from their home in Santa Ana, California, about three hundred
miles away.
"You've got to get the kids up and face the east tomorrow morning
around four Nevada time," she would always remember his telling her.
"You'll see a miracle."[26]
After the "miracle"--a massive atomic explosion named Hood that
official logs peg at seventy-four kilotons--Charles Broudy returned
home. An often-decorated pilot whose awards included a Distinguished
Flying Cross, Broudy was a career Marine with a top-secret clearance.
He said little about the nuclear tests.
Nineteen years later he was diagnosed with lymphoma, a radiation-
linked cancer. "He suffered terribly," recounted his widow, "but was
convinced that his government would take care of him in his final days
and would take care of his family after his death."[27]
However, after the drawn-out death occurred, the Veterans
Administration denied service-connected benefits to his widow and
children. Pat Broudy undertook detailed research. Aided by Princeton
University physicist Frank von Hippel, she found that the Hood shot
had exposed her late husband to about seventy thousand millirads of
radiation--more than five thousand times above the thirteen-millirad
dose the government said his film badge read at the test blast.[28]
But the Veterans Administration continued to turn down the Broudy
family's appeals. "I buried my husband and swore to avenge his death
if it takes the rest of my life, and well it may," Pat Broudy said in
1981.[29]
In response to a growing public awareness of the threat of nuclear
fallout, President Eisenhower introduced the notion of the "clean"
bomb. At a press conference on June 5, 1957, he declared that "we
have reduced fallout from bombs by nine-tenths." Nevada test
detonations were continuing in order "to see how clean we can make
them."[30]
A few weeks later, three top American atomic scientists, including
Dr. Edward Teller, met with President Eisenhower to support the "clean
bomb"' rationale for further nuclear testing. Teller told reporters
the meeting occurred to inform Eisenhower "what we are accomplishing
in the current weeks and what we hope to and plan to accomplish in the
coming years, if we can continue to work."[31] Teller made the
comment a few hours after a thirty-seven-kiloton nuclear bomb named
Priscilla had exploded in Nevada.
"Clean bomb" verbiage sought to put a relatively pretty face on the
testing program. "This was done to counter the increasing public
protests in the late 1950s against radioactive contamination resulting
from atmospheric nuclear test explosions," a later article in the
{Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists} remarked. "In addition, the
possible development of an `absolutely clean' bomb was used as an
argument against a nuclear test ban, then under negotiation with the
Soviet Union."[32]
After his June 1957 meeting with Teller and other physicists,
President Eisenhower shared his enthusiasm with the nation. "What
they are working on is . . . the production of clean bombs,"
Eisenhower proclaimed. "They tell me that already they are producing
bombs that have 96 percent less fallout than was the case in our
original ones, or what we call dirty bombs, but they go beyond this.
They say: `Give us four or five more years to test each step of our
development and we will produce an absolutely clean bomb.'" {The New
York Times} headline, for the article conveying the President's
statements, revealed one of the significant motives behind the
announcement: "EISENHOWER WARY OF ATOMIC TEST BAN."[33]
But promises about cleanliness of nuclear bombs did not
decontaminate the radiation still rising from Pacific Ocean and Nevada
test sites in 1958--during which the U.S. exploded seventy-seven
nuclear weapons. Even America's major metropolitan areas were not
exempt from intensely radioactive fallout clouds. Rapid-fire
atmospheric nuclear tests in Nevada, plus Russian atomic detonations,
sent radiation readings to the highest ever recorded in Los Angeles by
the end of October 1958. Government officials announced that the
fallout on Los Angeles was "harmless." Yet privately the National
Advisory Committee on Radiation termed the L.A. radioactivity "an
emergency."[34]
Panel members met in secret session on November 10, 1958, to discuss
the problem. "If you ever let these numbers get out to the public,
you have had it," said Lauriston S. Taylor, head of the Atomic
Radiation Physics Division of the National Bureau of Standards.[35]
The average radiation dose in Los Angeles hovered at the maximum
levels deemed "permissible" according to federal guidelines--and some
citizens received more than that amount. Taylor admitted that
references to permissible levels "carry the implication that we know
what we are talking about when we set them. But in actual fact, they
really represent the best judgment we would exercise now in the total
absence of any real knowledge as to whether they are correct or
not."[36]
U.S. surgeon general Dr. LeRoy Burney commented, "If I were in Los
Angeles, I would consider I was insulted for somebody in the Federal
Government . . . to say, `This is nothing to be alarmed about.'"[37]
The huddled government scientists observed that radiation dosages at
least as high as those besetting Los Angeles had been found the
previous year in Salt Lake City. But twenty years would pass before
residents of either city learned about what was said at that closed
governmental meeting.[38]
By the time the provisional nuclear test moratorium began in
November 1958, the United States had set off 196 nuclear bombs, while
the Soviet Union had detonated 55.
For nearly three years the world got relief from atmospheric nuclear
tests--except for a few fired by France in 1960 and 1961. Amid
growing world tensions--the Berlin and Cuban crises in particular--the
Soviets resumed testing with a huge nuclear explosion in September
1961, and the U.S. soon followed that example.[39] But the movement
for a formal test treaty continued.
------
19. Even when the bombs weren't exploding, the radiation burden was being
increased because of test-site activities. From 1955 to 1958, and
again in 1962, the government conducted dozens of "safety experiments"
--sometimes labeled "plutonium dispersal" in official logs--sprinkling
deadly plutonium particles to the winds in the southern Nevada desert.
At the time, the general public was unaware those tests were going on.
The Environmental Protection Agency discovered in 1974 that soil in the
two states contained the nation's highest plutonium concentrations.
The thickest blankets of plutonium in Utah were found in northern parts
of the state--including Salt Lake City. (U.S. Energy Research and
Development Administration, {Final Environmental Impact Statement,
Nevada Test Site, Nye County, Nevada} (Washington, D.C.: ERDA,
September 1977), pp. 2-88 to 2-91; {Health Effects of Low-Level
Radiation}, April 19, 1979, Vol. 1, pp. 65-66.
20. {Deseret News}, April 24, 1979; {Life}, June 1980, pp. 38-39.
21. {Life}, June 1980, p. 38.
22. Ibid., p. 39.
23. AEC Advisory Committee on Biology and Medicine Meeting Minutes,
January 16-19, 1957, pp. 4-6.
24. AEC, {Atomic Tests in Nevada}.
25. AEC, "Plumbbob Off-Site Rad-Safety Report," 1958, p. 19.
26. Pat Broudy to authors, January 2, 1981.
27. Ibid.
28. {Atomic Veterans' Newsletter}, p. 19.
29. Broudy to authors, January 2, 1981.
30. {New York Times}, June 25, 1957.
31. Ibid.
32. Wim A. Smit and Peter Boskma, "Laser Fusion," {Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists}, December 1980, p. 34.
33. {New York Times}, June 27, 1957, cited in Smit and Boskma, "Laser
Fusion," p. 34.
34. {Deseret News}, April 24, 1979.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. For a list of nuclear tests by all nations, see Melvin W. Carter and
A. Alan Moghissi, "Three Decades of Nuclear Testing," {Health Physics},
July 1977, pp. 55-71.
------
Fallout in New York State
By 1963 an atmospheric nuclear test ban was in final stages of
negotiation between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great
Britain. Carrying through promises of the 1960 campaign, President
John Kennedy had made it respectable for people to question fallout
from testing.
In a July 1963 speech televised to the nation Kennedy urged Senate
ratification of the test ban treaty: "The number of children and
grandchildren with cancer in their bones, with leukemia in their
blood, or with poison in their lungs might seem statistically small to
some, in comparison with natural hazards, but this is not a natural
health hazard--and it is not a statistical issue. The loss of even
one human life, or malformation of one baby--who may be born long
after we are gone--should be of concern to us all. Our children and
grandchildren are not merely statistics towards which we can be
indifferent."[40]
On August 20, 1963, Edward Teller testified before the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee in opposition to the test ban treaty.
"From the present levels of worldwide fallout, there is no danger," he
said. "The real danger is that you will frighten mothers from giving
milk to their babies. By that, probably more damage has been done
than by anything else concerning this matter."[41]
Across the Capitol, at a Joint Committee on Atomic Energy hearing,
University of Utah scientists Robert Pendleton and Charles Mays
presented evidence that because of the 1962 tests approximately a
quarter-million young children in Utah may have been exposed to
average thyroid doses of 4.4 rads. Their analysis had compelled the
state of Utah to dump several thousand gallons of milk--which
contained radioactive iodine levels eight times above the official
Federal Radiation Council guidelines. Dr. Mays estimated that as a
result of the Harry test in 1953, seven hundred infants in St. George
received radiation doses to their thyroids 136 to 500 times higher
than existing permissible levels.[42] Those doses could cause death,
genetic mutation, brain damage, and hypothyroidism among other
diseases.
Underscoring this point, witness Eric Reiss, cofounder of the St.
Louis Committee for Nuclear Information, added that "in the period
1951-62, a number of local populations, especially Nevada, Idaho, and
Utah . . . have been exposed to fallout so intense as to represent a
medically unacceptable hazard to children who may drink fresh locally
produced milk."[43]
On the next day a University of Pittsburgh Medical School professor
of radiology, Dr. Ernest Sternglass, presented testimony. His work
evoked the greatest amount of concern from the Joint Committee. In a
1963 paper in {Science} magazine,[44] Sternglass had calculated that
the latest two years of nuclear testing fallout exposed everybody
living in the Northern Hemisphere to a radiation dose of two hundred
to four hundred millirads, roughly equivalent to a pelvic X ray.
Citing Dr. Alice Stewart's findings of a 50 percent increase in
childhood cancer risks from fetal X rays,[45] Sternglass estimated
that there would be an additional eight hundred childhood cancer
deaths in the U.S. from the 1961-1962 tests alone.
Sternglass had applied those estimates to the Troy/Albany area in
upstate New York--where average radiation doses went as high as a few
thousand millirads as a result of fallout from the 1953 Simon test in
Nevada. Sternglass calculated a doubling in child cancer risks for
the residents of Troy/Albany.[46]
Sternglass submitted his findings on fallout effects to {Science}
magazine for publication. In its early days, {Science} had strongly
questioned the atomic establishment. In 1955 the magazine vigorously
attacked Lewis Strauss for scientific suppression and had published E.
B. Lewis's papers opposing the "threshold" concept of radiation
safety.
But now the editorship of {Science} had passed to Philip Abelson, a
physicist deeply involved in the government's nuclear program from the
Manhattan Project on. Abelson also served on the AEC's General
Advisory Committee and on its Project Plowshare Committee, which was
promoting "peaceful" uses of nuclear explosives. Not surprisingly,
Abelson rejected Sternglass's article on fallout contending that
"there is really no evidence of the functional relationship between
the number of X-rays taken and cancer mortality."[47]
Sternglass soon resubmitted his paper with comments from Dr. Russell
Morgan, one of America's foremost experts on X rays and the effects of
low-level radiation. Morgan praised Sternglass's paper and voiced
support for Alice Stewart's findings of definite links between X rays
and cancer--findings which by then had been confirmed by Dr. Brian
MacMahon of Harvard. Within a month after resubmission, {Science} was
forced to accept Sternglass's paper.
But in March of 1964 the magazine printed a letter from James H.
Lade of the New York State Health Department attacking Sternglass's
findings. Lade wrote that "the cancer report files of this department
reveal no increase in the incidence of cancer or leukemia over the
past 10 years in children of the Albany, Troy and Schenectady areas--
who were 15 years or younger in 1963--as compared with children of
this age elsewhere in upstate New York."[48]
A key phrase in Lade's argument came when he said the Albany area's
leukemia rate appeared normal "{as compared with children of this age
elsewhere in upstate New York."} The entire upstate New York region
had received heavy fallout on April 26, 1953, but measurements there
had been classified as secret by the AEC. "Under these
circumstances," Sternglass reasoned, "there would of course be little
or no difference in leukemia rates between Troy, Albany, Schenectady
and elsewhere in upstate New York." Lade's new information actually
"showed that beginning in the fourth to fifth years after the 1953
rainout, the yearly number of reported leukemia cases quadrupled,"
according to Sternglass.[49]
Unable to pry loose any further data from New York State's
uncooperative health department, Ernest Sternglass presented an update
of his Troy/Albany paper to the Health Physics Society's annual
meeting, held in Denver in June 1968. Reports of Sternglass's
findings received wide publicity in the U.S. and abroad. A month
after the annual meeting R. E. Alexander, chairman of the Health
Physics Society public-relations committee, sent a letter to the
society's board members, complaining that the "publicity about the
paper of E. J. Sternglass . . . was damaging to the nuclear
industry."[50]
Continuing his research, Sternglass began poring through U.S. vital
statistics for the three upstate counties in New York. While copying
the numbers he noticed that births had increased by only about 50
percent while leukemia cases went up by more than 300 percent. What
was even more striking, fetal deaths stopped declining while intense
fallout was taking place; seven years after testing, fetal deaths
resumed a downward trend. He then began a detailed comparison of
actual measured fallout levels made public by the AEC, with fetal and
infant death rates in New York State. "Each time the levels of the
short lived isotopes, such as I-131 and Strontium-90, shot up to their
highest peaks, there was a sharp rise in fetal mortality within a
year."[51]
The first large jumps in fetal deaths were "followed by a second
slower rise culminating between three and five years later,"
Sternglass discovered. The second peaks were especially high
"probably because each of the enormous fusion bombs . . . produced
hundreds of times as much Strontium-90 . . . in order to get a `bigger
bang for a buck,' as U.S. Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson put it.
Edward Teller and his weapons engineers had surrounded the hydrogen
bombs with cheap, abundant Uranium-238. As a result, the total
explosive force could be doubled . . . but the levels of Strontium-90
in the bones of living creatures vastly increased."[52]
By fall 1968 Sternglass had estimated that atmospheric nuclear
testing caused the deaths of 375,000 babies--in the United States
alone--before their first birthdays between 1951 and 1966.[53]
Sternglass discussed his research with colleagues in the Federation
of American Scientists. They agreed to hold a public meeting in
Pittsburgh on October 23, 1968. Meanwhile, Sternglass submitted
copies to {Science} and the {Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists}.
Pittsburgh television reporter Stuart Brown contacted {Science}
editor Philip Abelson for his comments on the Sternglass paper.
Contrary to the standard procedure of keeping editorial correspondence
confidential, Abelson read statements from scientific reviews of
Sternglass's paper responding to Lade on the Troy/Albany situation.
Abelson then advised Brown against using Sternglass's findings on the
air.[54] A few weeks later {Science} returned the Troy/Albany and
infant-mortality papers with a rejection notice.
The {Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists}, after a review of
Sternglass's infant-mortality paper, agreed to publish it in their
April 1969 issue. Sternglass later learned from the magazine's
managing editor, Richard S. Lewis, that the {Bulletin} withstood
pressure "both before and after publication in the form of long
distance phone calls from Washington from individuals who claimed to
be long-term Government friends of the journal." The callers informed
Lewis that publication of the Sternglass article was a "grave
mistake."[55]
------
40. Ernest Sternglass, {Secret Fallout}, pp. 27-28.
41. U.S. Congress, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, (88th Cong., 1st
sess.), August 12-27, 1963.
42. {Fallout, Radiation Standards and Countermeasures}, June 1963, Part 1.
43. Ibid., August 1963, Part 2.
44. Ernest J. Sternglass, "Cancer: Relation of Prenatal Radiation to
Development of Disease in Childhood," {Science}, June 7, 1963, pp.
1102-1104.
45. Stewart, et al., "Survey of Childhood Malignancies," pp. 1495-1508.
46. Sternglass, {Secret Fallout}, p. 21.
47. Ibid., p. 23.
48. J. H. Lade, "More on the 1953 Fallout in Troy," {Science}, March 6,
1964, pp. 994-995.
49. Sternglass, {Secret Fallout}, p. 43.
50. Ibid., p. 52.
51. Ibid., pp. 56, 57, 63.
52. Ibid., p. 65.
53. Ibid., p. 73.
54. Ibid., p. 75.
55. Ibid., p. 97.
------
Nuclear Experiments
In retrospect there is chilling irony in the atomic bomb's--and the
nuclear industry's--origins. Stopping Nazi barbarism provided the
initial rationale for the Manhattan Project, which developed the
atomic bomb. At the Nuremberg trials some Nazi scientists and other
functionaries were charged with grotesque experiments on humans; the
Nuremberg judges rejected excuses and rationalizations.
But since then, in the United States, "we have already accepted the
policy of experimentation on involuntary human subjects,"[56]
concluded Dr. John W. Gofman, a pioneer in radiation research who
codiscovered the fissionability of uranium 233 and helped isolate the
world's first milligram of plutonium.
"In the mid-'50s--when the toxi[ci]ty of low-dose radiation was
still uncertain--we were testing nuclear bombs in the atmosphere and
launching the Atoms for Peace Program," Gofman recalled in a 1979
statement. "It should have been clear to me, even then, that both
atmospheric bomb-testing and nuclear power constituted experimentation
on involuntary human subjects, indeed on all forms of life."[57]
With extraordinarily blunt self-criticism Gofman--a physicist and
medical doctor--went on: "I am on record in 1957 as {not} being
worried yet about fallout and still being optimistic about the
benefits of nuclear power. There is no way I can justify my failure
to help sound an alarm over these activities many years sooner than I
did. I feel that at least several hundred scientists trained in the
biomedical aspect of atomic energy--myself definitely included--are
candidates for Nuremberg-type trials for crimes against humanity
through our gross negligence and irresponsibility." And, Gofman
added, "Now that we {know} the hazard of low-dose radiation, the crime
is not experimentation--it's {murder}."[58]
People viewing such an assessment as unfair or excessively strident
might find it less so after visiting small towns like St. George,
Utah, or Fredonia, Arizona, or Tonopah, Nevada. The pain, for many,
has just begun.
Before dawn on January 27, 1981--exactly thirty years after the
first mushroom cloud ascended from the Nevada Test Site--lifelong Utah
residents gathered at the steps of the state capitol and lit candles
in memory of dead relatives and friends. Around the state other
memorial candles flickered in the darkness.
At the operations center for the Nevada Test Site daylight brought
simply the beginning of another working day. An Associated Press
reporter phoned for comment on the candlelight observances downwind.
He took notes, and wrote in an article sent across the nation a few
hours later: "The Department of Energy maintains there is `no
positive evidence' of a link between fallout and the cancer cases,
said Dee Jenkins, test site spokeswoman."[59]
We called Dee Jenkins and asked for clarification. Had she been
accurately quoted?
Yes, she replied. "There is no positive link between low-level
radiation and cancer cases."[60]
We asked whether the downwind residents had received "low-level
radiation" exposure during the atmospheric testing years.
"I'm not qualified to answer that question," she responded after a
pause.[61] Our request for a clarifying official statement was never
answered.
Three decades after the first fallout clouds from Nevada, in some
respects not much had really changed at federal agencies making
pronouncements about nuclear testing.
And, with some exceptions, American mass media have continued to be
influenced by substantial pressures to treat nuclear weapons testers
with deference.
In 1957 {The Reporter} magazine published an exceptional in-depth
article, "Clouds from Nevada," by investigative reporter Paul
Jacobs.[62] Raising basic questions about the safety of nuclear
tests, the article was a classic instance of prophetic journalism
that--if heeded at the time of publication--would have prevented a
great deal of fallout-induced harm yet to come. Twenty years later
Jacobs set about working on a documentary film to update the story.
Jacobs died from cancer in 1978, before completion of the
project.[63] Associates at New Time Films, based in New York,
finished the movie, titling it {Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang}.[64]
The result was a devastating chronicle of life and death downwind from
the test site.
To the nuclear industry, that was the problem. The movie was
clearly dangerous. And so when the Public Broadcasting Service
scheduled {Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang} for national telecast,
the Atomic Industrial Forum--an advocacy organization for nuclear
energy corporations--swung into action. It mounted an intensive
nationwide drive against the film, denouncing it as biased and unfit
for broadcast. In addition stations in some localities received
letters from regional reactor-committed electric utilities, urging
that the film not be broadcast.[65]
"After the Atomic Industrial Forum wrote to PBS to protest, the
censorship then took place on a local level," the film's associate
producer, Penny Bernstein, told us.[66] When the evening scheduled
for telecast came, public TV stations in nine of the nation's twenty-
four largest television areas refused to air {Paul Jacobs and the
Nuclear Gang}. Some, like the five public stations in New Jersey,
said they could not find broadcasting time for the film--ever. Other
stations postponed it to less popular time slots.[67]
In St. Louis, where public television station KETC scheduled the
movie and then yanked it at virtually the last minute, a {Post-
Dispatch} editorial expressed doubt that the program would have been
treated the same way if it had down-played radiation risks. Most
likely, the newspaper concluded, the TV station sought to avoid
controversy "only because the show questioned the safety of radiation
and because government and industry . . . have invested millions in
promoting nuclear power (with its accompanying radiation) as
safe."[68]
{Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang} won the only Emmy award that the
Public Broadcasting Service received for 1979. But as of late 1981
PBS--heavily reliant on government and corporate funding--had not
provided any money to the documentary movie's producers for a follow-
up film they had proposed.[69]
------
56. John W. Gofman, {An Irreverent, Illustrated View of Nuclear Power} (San
Francisco: Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, Main P.O. Box 11207,
San Francisco, CA 92401; 1979), p. 227.
57. Ibid.
58. Ibid., pp. 227-228.
59. {The Oregonian}, Associated Press, January 28, 1981.
60. Dee Jenkins, interview, February 1981.
61. Ibid.
62. Paul Jacobs, "Clouds from Nevada," {The Reporter}, May 16, 1957,
reprinted in {Health Effects of Low-Level Radiation}, Vol. 1, pp.
45-64. Jacobs was one of the few people to write about the Nevada
testing's destructive impact on downwind residents as early as 1957 for
a national readership. Another was Ralph Friedman, a free-lance
journalist who had written for the U.S. Army weekly {Yank} during World
War II. {The Nation} published Friedman's reportage--headlining it
"NEXT DOOR TO GROUND ZERO"--in autumn 1957. The federal government,
Friedman concluded in his article, "has done a top-flight Madison
Avenue public-relations job in playing down all issues relating to
radiation." But, he noted, "AEC publicists have the painful task of
double-dealing. They tell the isolated stockmen and miners that they
have nothing to worry about . . . They then tell the people of the
cities that the tests are `safe' because the fallout comes to rest in
`virtually uninhabited desert terrain.'" (Ralph Friedman, "Next Door to
Ground Zero," {Nation}, October 19, 1957, pp. 256-259.) When we asked
Friedman what the response was to {The Nation} article, he replied:
"None--as far as I could see." (Friedman, interview, March 1981.)
63. For a eulogy to Paul Jacobs see Saul Landau and Jack Willis, {In These
Times}, April 11-17, 1979.
64. Jack Willis and Saul Landau, {Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang}.
65. "PBS Stations Yield to Industry Pressure, Decline to Air Program on
Effects of Nuclear Radiation," {ACCESS}, March 26, 1979; Penny
Bernstein to authors, January 27, 1981.
66. Bernstein to authors, January 27, 1981.
67. "PBS Stations Yield to Industry Pressure."
68. {St. Louis Post-Dispatch}, March 3, 1979.
69. Bernstein to authors, January 27, 1981.
------
Underground Nuclear Tests
One of the most pervasive--and erroneous--beliefs about the U.S.
nuclear testing program is that its radioactive fallout ended when the
Limited Test Ban treaty took effect in 1963. When the nuclear tests
went underground, people assumed the weapons-testing radiation threat
disappeared. This comforting notion, carefully nurtured by the
government, is false.
In 1979 the U.S. Government admitted that more than 35 of
approximately 330 "underground" nuclear blasts sent radioactivity
outside the boundaries of the Nevada Test Site, during the 1960s and
early 1970s.[70] And the DOE's test site manager, General Mahlon
Gates, said that the government still was not sure it had made public
all the atomic tests that occurred in Nevada.[71] Prior to that
announcement governmental spokespeople were admitting to only half as
many underground test mishaps venting radioactivity off-site. "During
18 weapons tests which accidentally released radioactivity during the
period, 1962-1971, very, very, small releases occurred," DOE media
liaison David Miller said in December 1978.[72]
While understating the number of underground tests spewing
radioactivity beyond site boundaries, officials were even more
determined to belittle the severity of those ventings. "We didn't
believe it was a health hazard then and don't believe it is today,"
Miller insisted.[73] But that kind of assurance sounded more than a
little familiar. In St. George, Irma Thomas--who had lived through
the atmospheric testing days as a middle-aged woman--told us the
underground nuclear testing continued to infuriate her. "I don't
trust all that stuff about how safe it is," she said. "We've heard
that before."[74]
Across the Arizona border, in the town of Fredonia where the
leukemia epidemic killed four people including her husband, Rose
Mackelprang reacted to the underground testing with gentle anger: "I
don't think that we really should have to have any more radiation, I
think we have plenty without adding to it all the time. We have about
all that we need."[75]
In 1980 we visited the Nevada Test Site, touring the windswept
expanse of desert, accompanied by federal officials. Signs at heavily
guarded checkpoints now say "U.S. Department of Energy." As always it
is a military operation.
Amid the ugly pockmarks of the test site, where craters give off the
appearance of a moonscape from the air, the austere yet ecologically
intricate desert seemed transmuted, and profoundly violated.
For the record, Nevada Test Site representatives were resolute--
speaking of preparedness, national defense, a strong "military
posture." But an old hand at nuclear testing said, after asking us to
turn off our tape recorder, "No head of state, in the world, has ever
seen a nuclear bomb explosion. To me, that's scary." He added: "I
don't think anyone who has ever seen a nuclear explosion has ever not
asked the question--{My God, what have we done?}"[76]
When the 1980s began, nuclear detonations under the Nevada desert--
ranging up to 150 kilotons each--were occurring at an average rate of
once every three weeks.[77] After the Reagan administration gained
power in 1981, it pledged to increase that pace.
A cone-shaped crater, measuring several hundred feet deep and a
quarter-mile across, was left by the hydrogen "device" code-named
Sedan. Eighteen years after it was created by the 104-kiloton
thermonuclear blast, the crater--graced with an overlook platform and
an explanatory sign--had become a monument to the destructive force of
nuclear weaponry. But when it was detonated, as an experiment in
possible excavation uses of nuclear energy, Sedan sent intense
radiation all the way to the Eastern Seaboard. Probably little would
have been learned about this planned disaster had not some University
of Utah graduate students and their outspoken professor been visiting
a canyon about twenty miles southeast of Salt Lake City.
On July 7, 1962, radiologist Dr. Robert C. Pendleton was with
students on a field trip in Big Cottonwood Canyon. "We were measuring
levels of radioactivity in different environmental situations," Dr.
Pendleton remembered. "A cloud of radioactive material came over and
all the measurements began to go nuts. I recognized that we were
getting fallout and took the students off the hill and back down in
the valley."[78] The fallout had multiplied normal radiation readings
a hundredfold.[79]
There had been no warning from the government--only "the usual
announcements that atomic shots were taking place," according to
{Deseret News} environmental reporter Joseph Bauman.[80] Although the
federal government was content to let the matter rest, Dr. Pendleton
was not: "We found radioactive iodine in all of the children, milk
and vegetation that we measured in the whole northern section of the
state."[81]
Pendleton's determination to analyze impacts of the Sedan fallout
caused the Utah Department of Health to divert thousands of gallons of
milk--laced with radioactive iodine 131, a voracious destroyer of
human thyroids--that would have been otherwise consumed by Utah
residents.[82] The action partially deflected health damage to Utahns
from the Sedan test fallout. But it angered the White House--which
"responded by ordering the Public Health Service to clear its
radiation reports through the White House press office," {The Deseret
News} reported seventeen years later on the basis of newly
declassified federal documents.[83]
As long-secret records came to light, the Salt Lake City newspaper
published an interview with Dr. Pendleton about aftermaths of
ostensibly nonatmospheric nuclear testing in July 1962. Radioactive
iodine, cesium, and strontium increased "very markedly" after the
Sedan blast, Pendleton recalled. "We told Governor George D. Clyde
there was a risk, but the [U.S.] Public Health Service was telling the
State Division of Public Health a different story." The federal
policy of dismissing radiation alarms prevented use of precautions
that could have helped guard people from exposure. As Pendleton
observed, "Public relations statements that there was no harm in the
fallout clouds were reprehensible."[84]
During the 1960s, as Pendleton continued warning of radiation damage
from underground nuclear tests, official hostility toward him grew.
The conflict escalated in 1963 with the publication of a {Science}
magazine article on Utah's summer 1962 iodine 131 levels.[85]
Pendleton and two colleagues pointed out that the thyroids of many
thousands of Utah people were seriously threatened by nuclear
detonations in Nevada the previous summer--with children in their
first two years of life put at the greatest risk of all.
In 1964 a follow-up article in {Science} made clear that the country
as a whole remained in jeopardy from ventings of underground nuclear
tests.[86] Dr. Edward A. Martell, formerly employed by the U.S.
Government to monitor fallout, documented findings that underground
nuclear blasts were responsible for significant levels of iodine 131
in milk from the Pacific Northwest and the Midwest to the southeastern
United States.
"Even underground tests which are largely contained below ground
with only a limited release of radioactive gases and vapors cannot be
overlooked as sources of Iodine-131," Martell wrote. He added:
"Control of Iodine-131 fallout will be more effective if we control
its sources rather than the distribution and consumption of fresh
dairy products. . . . The high frequency of venting of radioactive
products from previous underground tests suggests that either there
was no serious attempt to contain them, or that containment is
difficult and uncertain."[87]
To a casual observer the scientific debate over iodine 131 from
underground testing might have seemed somewhat academic. But in a
community like Pleasant Grove--located near Provo, Utah, in the
fallout path of Sedan and other tests several years earlier--the issue
appeared much less abstract. During the late 1960s seven children in
that town of about five thousand people died from leukemia[88]--a rate
more than ten times higher than the national average.[89]
Pendleton found himself faced with cuts in federal research funds
because he was coming up with Utah radiation readings deemed "too
high."[90] Some of the most ominous nuclear tests were being executed
under the category of Plowshare explosions to develop nuclear
technology for functions like excavation. "Surely each person to be
showered with radioactive dust from engineering tests should be fully
informed of this possible hazard, and should be given a chance to
decide whether the risk is justified," Pendleton told a {Science
Digest} interviewer in 1967. He went on, "While we are making such
strong efforts all over the nation to clear up the air and remove
pollution, we have an agency proposing to release massive quantities
of radioactive air pollution to drift down over the inhabitants of the
country without even asking a by-your-leave as to whether they may do
so."[91]
In 1981 we asked Robert Pendleton to comment on his two-decade
altercation with nuclear weapons testing authorities. Continuing his
research as director of the Radiological Health Department at the
University of Utah, Dr. Pendleton seemed weary of the struggle. He
declined to discuss past cover-ups and coercion directed against
him.[92]
------
70. U.S. Congress, House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce,
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Testimony of General
Mahlon Gates, U.S. DOE manager of the Nevada Test Site, and Richard
E. Stanley, acting director of the U.S. Environmental Monitoring and
Support Laboratory," Las Vegas, Nevada, April 23, 1979, unpublished
transcript.
71. Ibid.
72. {Washington County News} (Utah), December 14, 1978.
73. Ibid.
74. Irma Thomas, interview, February 1980.
75. Rose Mackelprang, speech to National Conference for a Comprehensive
Test Ban, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, December 12, 1980.
76. DOE official, who requested anonymity, during tour of Nevada Test Site,
interview, February 1980.
77. David Jackson, DOE spokesman, interview, September 1980.
78. {Deseret News}, May 23, 1979.
79. {The Tribune} (Salt Lake), May 17, 1980.
80. {Deseret News}, May 23, 1979.
81. Ibid.
82. {The Tribune}, (Salt Lake), May 17, 1980.
83. {Deseret News}, April 24, 1979.
84. {Deseret News}, January 27, 1979.
85. Robert C. Pendleton, et al., "Iodine-131 in Utah During July and August
1962," {Science}, August 16, 1963, pp. 640-642.
86. E. A. Martell, "Iodine-131 Fallout from Underground Tests," {Science},
January 10, 1964, pp. 126-129.
87. Ibid., p. 129.
88. {The Tribune} (Salt Lake), May 17, 1980.
89. Heath, "Subject: Leukemia."
90. {Deseret News}, January 27, 1979.
91. Nelson Wadsworth, "Underground A-Tests May Be Making Us Radioactive,"
{Science Digest}, September 1967, pp. 15, 17.
92. Robert Pendleton to authors, January 19, 1981.
------
More Radiation Clouds
In the late 1960s and beyond, the kind of additional fallout that
underground testing critics had labored to prevent did indeed occur--
with several subsurface nuclear tests shooting radioactivity across
the U.S. and into Canada.
From 1966 to 1975 the federal officer responsible for monitoring of
off-site fallout from underground detonations was Colonel Raymond E.
Brim, chief of operations for the Air Force Technical Applications
Center. On December 8, 1968, a thirty-kiloton Plowshare blast named
Schooner sent up a storm of radioactivity over the Nevada Test Site.
As usual Brim's agency began to monitor the fallout.
"This effluent cloud was tracked continuously by Air Force planes
until it reached the border of Canada where standing orders prevented
tracking outside the United States," Brim revealed more than a decade
afterward. "I remember a few days later an article appeared in the
{New York Times} which reported an increase in radiation detected in
Canada. When we read the article, we knew that it was the cloud we
had tracked to the border."[93] But, at the time, Brim and his
colleagues kept silent. And, with neither the U.S. nor Canadian
governments willing to state definitely that the American test was the
cause of increased radiation levels in Canada, the matter dropped,
unresolved, from public sight.[94]
The Schooner test clouds also dropped radiation across the
continent. "It didn't register anywhere east of the Mississippi
because the AEC had no monitoring stations east of the river,"
according to Brim--who termed the government's strategy "a clever
adaption of the switch-the-monitors-off ploy."[95]
While working for the Air Force, Brim went along with the Pentagon
program and held his peace. During the first several years after
retirement, however, Colonel Brim mulled the implications of
underground testing radiation leaks. On August 1, 1979, he testified
at a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations.
"There is indisputable evidence on record that shows that the
people, not just of Utah and Nevada but of a much wider and more
encompassing area of the United States, were unknowingly subjected to
fallout of radioactive debris that resulted from ventings of
underground and cratering tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site,"
Brim told the congressional panel. "Because of weather and wind
patterns, this debris was frequently carried much farther than has
been reported to the public."[96]
Although Brim's testimony came at an open hearing on Capitol Hill,
{The New York Times}, {The Washington Post}, and the nation's other
most influential newspapers did not print a word about it.
More than a year later, in January 1981, Brim declared flatly that
"Americans were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation from `safe'
underground tests all through the 1960s and 1970s, and remain in
danger today." In an article published by {The Washington Monthly}
magazine, Colonel Brim charged: "Just as the risk of fallout
continues, so does the conscious government effort to cover up the
situation. Department of Energy officials fully understand that
underground testing can't fully contain radiation, yet downplay the
information or even withhold it from the public. Exactly as they did
in the 1950s, officials refuse to reveal information necessary for
those who live near radiation accidents to protect themselves."[97]
It was a strong statement from someone who--for nearly ten years--
served as the Pentagon's top officer in charge of monitoring leaks
from underground nuclear tests. "Today it seems incredible that
straight-faced government spokesmen could proclaim that standing
downwind of an open-air nuclear explosion was perfectly safe," Brim
went on. "It seems equally incredible that people believed the
claims. Yet that twin mentality continues to operate, with Washington
making what will, in years to come, be considered preposterous claims
about the safety of underground tests, and most people nodding their
heads in agreement."[98]
The Nevada Test Site's current manager, Mahlon Gates, made a public
appearance before a 1979 congressional hearing, ostensibly making a
clean breast of past underground test radiation ventings. Colonel
Brim observed, however, that Gates's "estimate of the {total} amount
of radiation downwind of a test site in the period from 1951 to 1969 .
. . worked out to less than a quarter of the radiation the Public
Health Service recorded after a {single blast} on the same site."[99]
Indicative of the kind of present-day hazards--and governmental
deceit--Brim alluded to was the underground nuclear test Baneberry.
When it vented on the morning of December 18, 1970, Baneberry sent a
mushroom cloud of radioactivity eight thousand feet into the air. Ten
years later the U.S. Government's official log of nuclear tests was
still claiming that only "minor levels of radioactivity" were detected
off-site from the Baneberry explosion.[100]
But Colonel Brim, who was responsible for off-site monitoring during
the Baneberry test, has pointed to evidence "that a dangerously high
concentration of Iodine-131, a radiation byproduct, was found in the
milk of Utah and Nevada cows which had eaten vegetation exposed to
Baneberry's fallout. Deer and sheep as far as 400 miles from the test
range had abnormal concentrations of iodine in their thyroid glands,
and the thyroid of a fetus from one sheep contained five times more
iodine than the thyroid of its mother."[101]
Favorable weather conditions mitigated the Baneberry fallout impact.
Dr. Robert Pendleton calculated that if the accident had happened in
summertime the result for Utah residents could have been "a very
significant radiation dose to the thyroid."[102]
Baneberry radioactivity rode the winds to the Northwest, Midwest,
and New England, also reaching Canada. The following spring Dr.
Ernest Sternglass and associates accumulated data on where the fallout
had descended. They compared the findings to U.S. Monthly Vital
Statistics reports on mortality of infants born after the vented test
blast. "In all of the states where the total radioactivity rose
highest--Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Nevada, Washington, Nebraska, and as
far away as Minnesota and Maine--infant mortality also rose sharply
during the first three months after the test," Sternglass discovered.
"Across the rest of the U.S., the pattern of general decline
continued."[103]
The fetal deaths for Bannock County in southeastern Idaho, directly
in the path of the December 1970 Baneberry fallout,[104] rose to their
highest level in 1971, compared with any of the five previous or five
following years.[105] That year there were twenty-one officially
recorded fetal deaths in Bannock County--62 percent higher than the
average annual total for the years 1966 to 1976.[106]
Was the Baneberry underground test venting a fluke unlikely to be
repeated? The United States Government says yes. But a 1974
confidential U.S. military memo, written by nuclear testing program
officer Captain William Gay, says otherwise. Made public through
efforts by Senator Edward Kennedy in 1979, Captain Gay's memorandum
stated that "on the basis of past experience at NTS [Nevada Test
Site], a rather high incidence prevails for a release of radioactivity
like Baneberry." The Gay memo added that "the risk is not like one in
a million or so low as to be comfortable. Ventings have happened and
will probably happen again."[107]
Captain Gay, director for tests in the Atomic Energy Commission's
Division of Military Application, also wrote in the memo:
"Considering past experience, massive venting can be expected in about
one [ratio blanked out by censors] events."[108] Even after the
decision was made to declassify the document in 1979, the American
people apparently could not be trusted to hear a candid official
estimate of the chances for future disastrous ventings of underground
nuclear bomb tests.
------
93. U.S. Congress, House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce,
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, "Testimony of Raymond
Brim, Retired Colonel, U.S. Air Force, Washington, D.C., August 1,
1979, unpublished transcript.
94. Ibid.
95. Raymond E. Brim and Patricia Condon, "Another A-Bomb Cover-up,"
{Washington Monthly}, January 1981, p. 48.
96. "Testimony of Raymond Brim."
97. Brim and Condon, "Another A-Bomb Cover-up," p. 45.
98. Ibid., p. 46.
99. Ibid., p. 48.
100. {Announced US Nuclear Tests}, p. 30.
101. Brim and Condon, "Another A-Bomb Cover-up," p. 47.
102. {Deseret News}, January 27, 1978.
103. Sternglass, {Secret Fallout}, p. 181.
104. The Baneberry fallout split into three general trajectories after
venting. The westernmost segment went over the Idaho Falls area of
southeastern Idaho, passing directly over Bannock County. ({Deseret
News}, January 27, 1978. See also, EPA, "Final Report of Off-Site
Surveillance for the Baneberry Event, December 18, 1970," Western
Environmental Research Laboratory, SWRHL-107r, February 1972,
especially pp. 31, 51.)
105. Bannock County and overall Idaho fetal death statistics are contained
in anthropology master's thesis by Edward B. Beldin, Idaho State
University, "A Bioanthropological Approach to the Effects of Air
Quality on Human Health, with Emphasis on the Incidence of Stillbirths
in Two Southeast Idaho Cities," 1978.
106. Ibid. When put in ratio to live births, the Bannock County fetal
deaths in 1971 were even more anomalous in comparison with preceding
and subsequent years.
107. {Health Effects of Low-Level Radiation}, Vol. 1, p. 125.
108. Ibid.
------
Irradiated Test Workers
Bennie F. Levy was thirty-two years old when he began working at the
Nevada Test Site in 1951, the first year of nuclear explosions there.
Born and raised on an Arizona cattle ranch, he had left college to
volunteer for the Air Corps soon after Pearl Harbor, helping to
service B-24s and other Allied bombers at Pacific Ocean bases. After
the war, he became an ironworker, on jobs at dam construction along
the Colorado River, then electrical transmission lines in the
Southwest. A member of the Structural Ironworkers Union, he was
laboring on a dam project in the Pacific Northwest when he first heard
about a big new source of employment.
"I was in Walla Walla, Washington, when I got a letter from a friend
in September 1950 to come to Las Vegas, Nevada, that there was a big
job breakin' here," Levy recalled in an interview.[109]
In autumn 1951 Levy's career as a Nevada Test Site ironworker got
under way. "We were workin' a lot around radiation," he told us. "We
asked, `Is it safe to go in?' They say, `Oh, yeah, it's safe, nothing
wrong with it, it's safe.'"[110]
Levy and other ironworkers built towers the atom bombs would be
perched on for detonation. In early 1952 he helped set up a test for
the first time. "We got everything ready and then we came home."
From the town of Henderson, nearly a hundred miles away, he watched
the orange light glow of the atomic blast. "It was pretty. It was a
pretty shot. They were all pretty."[111]
The work settled into a routine. After a nuclear detonation a few
ironworkers would be directly involved in retrieving instrumentation
from ground zero. On a rotating basis Levy and fellow ironworkers
"were recovering the data for the scientists. And we'd go in anywhere
from thirty minutes to an hour after the event, after the shot. And
the fallout--we went right through it." Levy paused. "Of course we
were `rad-safed' with cotton coveralls and a little cap." How about
protection for mouth and nose? "Never wore a respirator," he
replied.[112]
During the early and middle 1950s Levy personally went on the
reentry mission dozens of times--"at least thirty, forty, maybe more
than that." And, as a matter of course, along with coworkers he ate
lunch in "forward areas" hot with radioactive particles, including
plutonium. "On occasion," he remembered, "monitors would come by with
Geiger counters and get readings on my lunch pail or tools. This
common occurrence leaves no doubt in my mind that I was breathing and
swallowing radioactive debris all the time. We had no facilities to
wash our hands or face, and we could not leave the contaminated areas
for lunch as that would take an extra thirty minutes."[113]
Bennie Levy had been employed at the test site for about a year
when--unbeknownst to him or his fellow workers, or the general
public--Atomic Energy Commission policymakers met to discuss their
working conditions. In the words of then-secret AEC minutes, "the
commissioners expressed concern that workers might be exposed to
radiation hazards for too long a time."[114] At a follow-up meeting
two weeks later, AEC records show, the commissioners heard that "the
means used to determine the intensity and duration of exposure are not
always as reliable as might be desired and in general it cannot be
said that exposure problems at the test site have been completely
solved."[115]
But test site employees like Bennie Levy heard nothing of the sort
from official quarters. They continued at their high-paying jobs,
believing their work shored up national security. Yet Levy noticed a
few odd things. "Although we were assured that there was no danger, I
thought it was a bit curious that supervisors and AEC personnel did
not remain in the area. I questioned them on various occasions and
was told that they did not have to remain."[116]
When the nuclear testing program shifted underground in the early
1960s, Bennie Levy took part in drilling tasks. In the process, "I
was involved in operations which caused me to be exposed on many
occasions." Often the underground shots leaked badly, scattering
radiation, "but we continued to work in these same areas as if there
was no danger at all."[117]
And caverns left by the nuclear blasts seeped radiation for days--
even years--afterward.[118]
Mounting cancer and leukemia deaths among test-site workers became
conspicuous to those who had labored side by side. But the government
conducted no health study of test-site employees. "In fact,"
according to Levy, "any suggestion that radiation had caused cancer
was fought bitterly. In my own craft, the ironworkers, I do not need
to be told that cancer has been caused by radiation. I have seen my
fellow workers die before my very eyes."[119]
In the late 1970s, after more than twenty-five years of employment
at the test site, Levy left the job and began to research the health
of people with whom he had worked. Levy documented that, out of only
350 fellow ironworkers at the test site, two had died of
leukemia.[120] Among 350 men, even a single instance of leukemia
would have been unusual under ordinary circumstances.
By 1981 he had accumulated a list of 132 men who died of cancer or
blood diseases, out of 3,100 construction-trades employees working in
highly contaminated forward areas at the Nevada Test Site. Three men
on the list--Clarence Crockett, Robert Sendlein, and Warren Snyder--
died of multiple myeloma bone-marrow cancer during 1977 and 1978.[121]
And in just three months of spring 1981 three who worked in the test-
site drilling division died of brain cancer.[122]
Eighteen of the men on Bennie Levy's list died of leukemia, a rate
of approximately five times the normal.[123] Two others--caught in
thick radiation clouds after the Baneberry underground test venting--
died of acute myeloid leukemia.[124]
In 1981 the U.S. Government was still denying that the Baneberry
blast's radiation caused the leukemia that killed those two workers,
test-site guard Harley Roberts and welder William Nunamaker. They had
been among eighty-six workers taken to the site's center for treatment
after being covered by radioactive clouds that erupted out of the
shaft.[125] The two leukemia deaths, out of eighty-six individuals,
vastly surpass normal rates of incidence.
"We just would like it to be on record that we know our husbands
died of leukemia by radiation," widow Louise Nunamaker told a
congressional subcommittee in 1979 as she sat next to Dorothy Roberts.
"I saw a very well, healthy man die, a beautiful person that loved his
country, served his country in the war and also was in the field from
1957. . . . I don't think anyone will know the hell we have been
through with the testimony and [the government's] saying that the
records of my husband have been destroyed and so forth and so forth.
Things we know are untruths. It was very, very difficult for both of
us."[126]
Bill Nunamaker, his widow recalled, "never said anything until his
deathbed. He said, `Mother, you know what I died from. Go get
them.'"[127]
Louise Nunamaker and Dorothy Roberts tried. When the DOE turned a
deaf ear to their entreaties, they went to federal court with a
lawsuit. But the two widows had meager financial resources to use
against a courtroom adversary with virtually unlimited funds. When a
reporter for the {Los Angeles Herald Examiner} asked the U.S. Justice
Department's head attorney on the case, William Z. Elliott, how much
the government was spending to defeat the Nunamaker/Roberts suit, he
replied, "As much as it takes to win."[128]
------
109. Bennie Levy, interview, December 1980.
110. Ibid.
111. Ibid.
112. Ibid.
113. Ibid.
114. AEC Commissioners Meeting Minutes, September 23, 1952, p. 504.
115. AEC Commissioners Meeting Minutes, October 7, 1952, p. 536.
116. Levy, interview, December 1980.
117. Ibid.
118. {Final Environmental Impact Statement}, Nevada Test Site, pp. 2-99,
2-106. In addition to leakage from "drillback" operations, the EPA
has conceded that craters left by Sedan and other subsurface blasts
have continued to seep radiation. (EPA, "Off-Site Environmental
Monitoring Report for the Nevada Test Site and Other Areas Used for
Underground Test Detonations," Las Vegas, 1977, 1978.)
119. Levy, interview, December 1980.
120. Joe Naves and Raymond Browers.
121. "Deceased Nevada Test Site Workers," list provided by Levy, 1981.
122. Levy, interview, June 1981.
123. The usual rate of leukemia among a comparable number of American males
as determined for the Smoky bomb test participants study cited in
Chapter 2, would be less than four cases--in contrast to the eighteen
instances of leukemia found by Levy among test-site building-trades
workers.
124. {Los Angeles Herald Examiner}, March 11, 1979.
125. Ibid.
126. U.S. Congress, House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce,
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, "Testimony of Louise
Nunamaker and Dorothy Roberts," Las Vegas, April 23, 1979, unpublished
transcript.
127. Ibid.
128. {Los Angeles Herald Examiner}, March 11, 1979. In 1980 and early 1981
a total of 263 suits were filed in U.S. District Court on behalf of
former Nevada Test Site workers, seeking compensation payments for
cancer and other radiation-linked illnesses. ({San Diego Evening
Tribune}, Associated Press, November 14, 1980; {Las Vegas Sun},
February 26 1981.) In 1980 the Nevada Test Site Radiation Victim
Association came into existence with Bennie Levy serving as president.
(NTSRVA, P.O. Box 18414-192, Las Vegas, NV 89114.)
------
No End in Sight
In autumn 1980 yet another underground test in Nevada sent radiation
off-site.[129] For residents it was a bad case of deja vu.
Utah governor Scott M. Matheson was disgusted. "This lack of
communication is too much like what occurred between the state of Utah
and the Atomic Energy Commission . . . 30 years ago," the governor
asserted in a letter to the U.S. Department of Energy. "I object to
the disregard for the rights of Utahns to know when there is even the
possibility of risk for increased radioactivity in our state as a
result of nuclear testing in Nevada."[130]
Indeed, events had followed a classic pattern. The Energy
Department waited twelve hours after detection of the September 25
radioactive leakage before alerting the Environmental Protection
Agency, the federal department responsible for off-site monitoring of
radiation.[131] Despite public assurances by DOE that radiation "is
not expected to leave the Nevada Test Site," the EPA later reported
finding radioactive xenon gas near the California border.[132]
Like Utah state officials, California authorities learned of the
nuclear accident from the news media--about four hours after EPA was
informed of the problem, and a full sixteen hours after on-site DOE
personnel reportedly discovered the leak.[133] Meanwhile less than
eighteen hours after the mishap the radioactive gas traveled forty
miles in a southwesterly direction and reached Lathrop Wells, a small
Nevada town about ten miles from the California line.[134]
EPA spokesman Chuck Costa acknowledged, when we interviewed him,
that his agency did not have monitoring equipment available in
California capable of detecting radioactive gases such as xenon. The
only such EPA monitors were stationed in Nevada, he said. As for the
delay in revealing the leak, Costa--EPA's deputy director for nuclear
radiation assessment--said that "there was an obvious screw-up in
communication over at DOE. They should have called us much earlier
than they did."[135]
When we asked DOE for comment, the response was tight-lipped. "We
feel that they were notified in what we considered to be a timely
manner," test-site spokesman David Jackson said. "That was the way it
was, and I have no further comment.[136]
The U.S. Government has remained especially anxious to retain its
nuclear testing prerogative in Nevada. Federal officials would be
hard pressed to find another state hospitable to such activities.
After nuclear tests in 1969 and 1973 Colorado voters passed a
referendum requiring ballot approval of any further atomic blasts
within the state.[137] In southern Mississippi two underground atomic
explosions during the mid-1960s occurred near the town of Hattiesburg.
A decade and a half later, an Associated Press dispatch noted,
Governor Cliff Finch urged families nearby to evacuate "after the
University of Mississippi reported that scientists had found
radioactive and deformed toads, frogs, and a lizard above the Tatum
Salt Dome, a shelf of salt used in the 1960s for nuclear explosions."
Tests of one frog detected radioactivity one thousand times
normal.[138]
At Carlsbad, New Mexico, a 1961 underground nuclear test, named
Gnome, sent radiation airborne. Two years later, in congressional
testimony, Dr. Eric Reiss said that the Gnome test "delivered
sufficient fallout to the vicinity of Carlsbad, New Mexico, to cause
thyroid dose levels of from 7 to 55 rads to children."[139]
There are strong indications the radioactivity caused second-
generation genetic defects. Dr. Catherine Armstrong, a pediatrician
in Carlsbad since 1950, told us that during thirty-one years of
practice she noticed a startling upswing of serious congenital damage
apparent at birth. That trend did not get under way until well after
the underground atomic blast vented radiation in 1961.[140]
"Young people coming along are having a noticeable increase of
congenital abnormalities, much more than we used to have in this
area," Dr. Armstrong said in a 1981 interview. "Congenital heart
diseases" have been far more prevalent, along with increased bone
defects, severely immature livers, and jaundice among newborns in the
Carlsbad community. Dr. Armstrong noticed that those problems became
conspicuous during the mid-1970s--years when many area residents who
were small children at the time of the Gnome nuclear test began
raising families. "It's got to be more than coincidental," she
declared.[141]
As with every presidency since Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the
White House, the administration of Ronald Reagan eagerly embraced
nuclear testing as part of national defense. The desert of southern
Nevada has become the place where America culminates work on the
nuclear weapons development assembly line. Even without detonation in
combat, those atomic warheads have been endangering the lives of many
Americans and of future generations around the world.
"Our nuclear program was built in the name of national security--
protecting the lives of Americans," Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder
commented in 1980. "One can't help but wonder, who was protected and
at whose expense?."[142]
------
129. {The Oregonian}, Associated Press, September 28, 1980.
130. {The Tribune} (Salt Lake), October 9, 1980.
131. DOE spokesman David Jackson and EPA official Chuck Costa, interviews,
September 1980.
132. {The Oregonian}, September 28, 1980; Costa, interview, September 1980.
133. James Mahoney, California Department of Health Services, and Alvin
Rickers, state of Utah, interviews, September 1980.
134. {The Oregonian}, September 28, 1980; Costa, interview, September 1980.
135. Costa, interview, September 1980.
136. Jackson, interview, September 1980. But nuclear health physics pioneer
Karl Z. Morgan was far from complacent about the delay. "It's very
important that appropriate monitoring be done. If you wait till the
cloud has passed over, you miss entirely what was in it," Dr. Morgan
said. (Morgan, interview, September 1980.)
137. Anna Gyorgy and Friends, {NO NUKES: Everyone's Guide to Nuclear Power}
(Boston: South End Press, 1979), p. 443.
138. {Boston Globe}, Associated Press, May 26, 1979.
139. {Fallout, Radiation Standards and Countermeasures}, August 1963, Part 2.
140. Dr. Catherine Armstrong, interview, May 1981.
141. Ibid.
142. Patricia Schroeder, press release statement, April 12, 1980.
------
______________________________________________________________________________
P A R T II
____________
X Rays and the Radioactive Workplace
* * * * * * *
[part 7 of 18]
6
The Use and Misuse of Medical X Rays
During 1979 congressional hearings on medical and dental X rays,
Congressman Albert Gore (D-Tenn.) recalled taking his young daughter
to a hospital emergency room after she had inhaled some pillow
stuffing. She was having trouble breathing. Recalled Gore: "The
first thing the doctor said is, `Let's have an X ray.'" Gore asked
the doctor if the pillow stuffing would show up on the X ray. The
doctor said it would not. Gore then asked why an X ray was necessary.
The doctor said it would be good to have as a base against which to
compare future X rays in case some pneumonia developed. Gore decided
not to allow the X ray to be taken.[1]
Gore's action was a rare one. In 1979--the year of the accident at
Three Mile Island--the American population received over 270 million
individual X rays.[2] They constituted the largest single source of
human-made external radiation doses to the American public. In 1980
some $6.7 billion was spent on radiology equipment, insurance, and
personnel;[3] approximately 300,000 people are currently employed
operating medical and dental X-ray equipment.[4] Yet the doses
administered by this industry were hardly insignificant. In some
cases they may have harmed rather than helped their patients.
There is no question that X rays can perform enormously important
medical services, and that their use has made an inestimable
contribution to human health. Surgical therapy; treatment of bone
fractures; location of various cancers, internal diseases, and
malformations--all have become possible with the use of X rays, and
all have resulted in the alleviation of pain and the saving of lives
on a mass scale. As a result, X-ray diagnosis has rightfully taken
its place as a vital and necessary part of medical therapy throughout
the world.
The problems arise when the technology is overused and its dangers
are not fully appreciated by the medical profession or the public.
Every indicator now points to new warnings that caution is advised,
and that there are those--particularly pregnant women and their unborn
children--who have already suffered from the misuse of this medical
miracle.
------
1. U.S. Congress, House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce,
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, {Unnecessary Exposure to
Radiation from Medical and Dental X-rays}, 96th Cong., 1st sess., July
24 and 31, 1979, pp. 86-87 (hereafter cited as {1979 X-ray Hearings}).
2. {1979 X-ray Hearings}, p. 79.
3. Joseph D. Calhoun, "President's Address," {American Journal of
Roentgenology} 135 (September 1980): 636-646.
4. {1979 X-ray Hearings}, p. 71.
------
The Dawn of the X Ray
X rays were discovered accidentally on November 23, 1895, by the
German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen. Roentgen was working in a darkened
room, trying to determine whether recently discovered cathode rays
could travel through a glass vacuum tube. "Suddenly, about a yard
from the tube," recounted Dr. Otto Glasser, Roentgen's biographer,
"there was a weak light that shimmered on a little bench he knew was
located nearby. It was as though a ray of light or a faint spark from
the induction coil had been reflected by a mirror."
Not believing this possible, Roentgen repeated the process, and
another faint light appeared, this time looking "like a faint green
cloud." Excited, Roentgen soon found the fluorescence was caused by
the rays striking a chemically treated screen. After extensive
experiments he determined that the rays had a very short wavelength
that gave them special penetrating power, enabling them to pass
through various substances--including human flesh. Human bones, he
found, cast a denser shadow than surrounding soft tissues--a property
that would form the basis for the global medical X-ray industry.[5]
Roentgen published his first article on the phenomenon in late
December 1895. By February of 1896 American physicists were using X
rays in clinical medicine. One patient--a young boy named Eddie
McCarthy--had a broken forearm X-rayed. A young New Yorker named
Tolson Cunningham had a bullet removed from his leg after it was
located with a forty-five-minute X-ray exposure. Soon University of
Pennsylvania professor Henry W. Cattell wrote in {Science} that "the
manifold uses to which Roentgen's discovery may be applied in medicine
are so obvious that it is even now questionable whether a surgeon
would be morally justified in performing a certain class of operations
without first having seen pictured by these rays the field of his
work--a map, as it were, of the unknown country he is to explore."
Within months X rays were used to find a bullet in the brain of a
twelve-year-old child, a severed drainage tube in a lung, and to
photograph a broken hip joint. By the end of 1896 a Chicago
electrical engineer named Wolfram C. Fuchs had performed more than
fourteen hundred X-ray examinations, and doctors were regularly
referring their patients to "specialists" with the simple, primitive
machines they had bought or built themselves.[6]
Not surprisingly the early X-ray pioneers had little understanding
of the potential dangers of radiation. They rarely bothered to
protect their patients or themselves from overexposure. Machine
operators often tested their equipment by placing their hands--time
and again--in the beam. With fluctuating power ratios and errant
beams, doctors, patients, machine operators, and bystanders alike were
exposed. The X rays could even penetrate walls and irradiate people
in other rooms.[7]
And the side effects were not long in surfacing. In 1896 Dr. D. W.
Gage of McCook, Nebraska, writing in New York's {Medical Record},
noted cases of hair loss, reddened skin, skin sloughing off, and
lesions. "I wish to suggest that more be understood regarding the
action of the x rays before the general practitioner adopts them in
his daily work," Gage warned.[8]
As the technology was refined and the equipment became more
powerful, increasingly serious damage began to surface. A part-time
machine demonstrator named H. D. Hawks was forced to quit his job
after only four days because his hands began to redden and swell. The
skin on his knuckles disintegrated from overexposure, fingernail
growth halted, and the hair on exposed skin fell out.[9] Hawks's
problems were minor compared with those of Clarence Madison Dally, a
glassblower at Thomas Edison's Menlo Park laboratory and the first
American X-ray worker known to have been killed by X-ray exposure.
Dally frequently tested the output of radiation tubes by placing his
hands directly in the beam. Though he was severely burned in 1896,
Dally continued X-ray work for two more years. In 1902 his right arm
was amputated at the shoulder to arrest the spread of skin cancer;
two years later his left arm was amputated for the same reason. Dally
died that October, prompting Edison to discontinue radiation research
in his laboratory. By the 1930s so many people had fallen victim to
the misuse of X rays that an entire book (entitled {American Martyrs
to Science Through the Roentgen Rays}) was published by Dr. Percy
Brown, a Boston radiologist who himself died of cancer in 1950.[10]
As the demand for X rays expanded, so did the number of people
operating the machines. Radiology grew from a specialty of only a few
hundred practitioners in 1913 to a burgeoning profession with more
than fifteen thousand people in 1981--roughly 6 percent of the
nation's physicians. To become certified radiologists, doctors
generally complete a three-year residency following their medical-
school training and internship. A one-year fellowship in a specialty
may also be taken. They must then pass a national examination before
practicing.[11] As an elite group of medical doctors with radiation
training, they raised the use of diagnostic X rays to the status of a
high-powered medical specialty.
Unfortunately the health of radiologists declined dramatically with
the expansion of their trade. In 1946 a statistical study of
obituaries in the {New England Journal of Medicine} by Dr. Helmuth
Ulrich found the leukemia rate among radiologists to be eight times
that of other doctors.[12] In 1956 the National Academy of Sciences
(NAS) supported those findings in a report that concluded that
radiologists lived 5.2 years less than other doctors.[13] In 1963 a
study by Dr. E. B. Lewis found a significant excess of deaths from
leukemia, multiple myeloma, and aplastic anemia among radiologists,
and two years later two Johns Hopkins researchers discovered a 70
percent excess of cardiovascular disease and certain cancers among
radiologists as opposed to the general population, and a 730 percent
rise in leukemia deaths.[14] In 1981 Dr. Genevieve Matanowski, who is
directing the continuation of the Johns Hopkins study, wrote that
there is additional evidence that radiologists also suffer an
increased risk of contracting multiple myeloma, and an increased
chance of death from strokes and heart disease.[15]
And though they have become the human guinea pigs of the X-ray
industry, radiologists unfortunately are not the only people
administering X rays. In fact many medical practitioners obtain their
M.D. certificates and go on to use X-ray machines extensively in their
practices without even rudimentary training in radiology. Dr. Herbert
Abrams, professor of radiology at the Harvard Medical School, has
warned that the problem "can be traced to medical schools, where all
too often one finds too few radiologists on the faculty, too little
support of the department, too little time in the curriculum and too
few radiology clerkships." The result, he warns, "may be a graduating
class with limited knowledge of what radiology can do."[16] Indeed,
Dr. Karl Z. Morgan, founder of the profession of radiation health
physics, has stated: "If you ask many of these doctors what is a
roentgen or a rad, they are not even able to give you the
definition."[17] Surveys have shown, in fact, that nonradiologists
who provided their own X-ray services ordered twice as many X rays as
those doctors who referred patients to trained radiologists expert in
the field, with a more complete understanding of the technology and
its dangers.[18]
And if doctors are largely ignorant of the potential health effects
of the X-ray machines in their offices, often the roughly 150,000
people who actually operate them understand the dangers even less. As
of 1981 less than a third of the states in the U.S. required licensing
of X-ray machine operators, and even those programs are by no means
uniform. Most of the licensing only pertains to full-time X-ray
equipment operators and does not cover people who operate the machines
part time. Only California, of all the fifty states, requires that
all X-ray machine operators be specially trained.[19]
Meanwhile the vast majority of the people administering X rays may
not really know what they are doing. Congressman Bob Eckhardt,
chairman of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations,
found it "particularly disturbing, if not outright frightening . . .
that in many states any person can walk off the streets and operate
machines which are capable of inflicting great harm upon those exposed
to them."[20] Daniel Donohue, president of the American Society of
Radiologic Technologists, has echoed the sentiment. After assisting
in a training program he found that many prospective X-ray machine
operators "were told never to adjust the controls of the equipment,
but to increase the time of exposure when they X-rayed a larger
patient. Many were told to experiment on their patient and to try
different techniques . . . to learn how to use the equipment." Some,
Donohue added, had been instructed "not to limit the beam of radiation
in the area of interest." The technique of limiting tissue exposed is
now seen as a basic safety practice in medical radiology.
Donohue found the experience deeply disturbing. "Most of these
operators--which included nurses, medical assistants, secretaries,
receptionists--who were employed and expected to perform radiological
examinations as part of their job requirements were not provided
radiation monitoring devices to determine their accumulated dosage,
and were unaware that a potential hazard existed for either themselves
or their patients."[21]
Herbert Abrams has added his opinion that improper focusing and
shielding may be widespread among untrained X-ray operators.[22] And
a nationwide evaluation by the Bureau of Radiological Health (BRH) has
borne out that fear. In 1975 the BRH found that 63 percent of the
noncredentialed operators tested failed to properly restrict the X-ray
beam to the size of the film for a given examination and thus
unnecessarily overexposed the patient. Forty percent of the
credentialed technologists taking that same test failed. In some
cases exposure levels varied from patient to patient by a factor of
two thousand.[23]
In August 1981, under intense pressure from portions of the
radiation health community, Congress passed a law requiring the states
to establish federally approved programs for the training and
licensing of radiological technologists. The programs are to be in
place by 1985.
------
5. Otto Glasser, {Dr. W. C. Roentgen}, 2nd ed. (Springfield, Ill.:
Charles C. Thomas, 1958), p. 36.
6. Ruth Brecher and Edward Brecher, {The Rays: A History of Radiology in
the United States and Canada} (Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1969),
pp. 9, 16, 63, 64.
7. Joel Griffiths and Richard Ballantine, {Silent Slaughter}, (Chicago:
Henry Regnery Company, 1972), p. 39; Charles Panati and Michael
Hudson, {The Silent Intruder: Surviving the Nuclear Age} (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1981), pp. 3-43.
X rays are produced by bombarding a tungsten target with high-speed
electrons in a vacuum tube. They are invisible to the human eye, but
they may be captured as a visible image on film. The making of film
records of internal body parts by X-ray exposure is called radiography;
the film image, a radiograph.
Advances in equipment design capability and procedures led to
radiation's rapid growth in the medical field after 1920. Refinements
--limiting source size, providing radiation shields and high voltage
protection, and disposing of excess heat--allowed the number and types
of radiologic examinations to increase. Present-day X-ray films and
intensifying screens provide physicians with high-quality images of
bones and internal organs, while delivering much less radiation to the
patient.
Today, films are coated with chemical emulsions to enhance their
sensitivity to X rays. The more sensitive a film, the smaller the dose
of radiation needed to produce an image. Some of the newer
sophisticated films are in the experimental stages or not yet widely
used. Intensifying screens are thin sheets of plastic or cardboard
coated with a substance that emits blue light when struck by X rays.
This acts with the X rays to produce an image of a bone or internal
organ with less radiation exposure. Rare-earth metals are used in the
most sensitive intensifying screens.
8. Brecher and Brecher, {The Rays}, p. 88.
9. {Electrical Review}, 1896, p. 250.
10. Percy Brown, {American Martyrs to Science Through the Roentgen Rays}
(Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 1936), p. 37.
11. Brecher and Brecher, {The Rays}, p. 211.
12. Helmuth Ulrich, "Incidence of Leukemia in Radiologists," {New England
Journal of Medicine}, January 10, 1946, Vol. 234, pp. 45-46.
13. NAS, {Pathologic Effects of Atomic Radiation}, Publication No. 452
(Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1956).
14. E. B. Lewis, "Leukemia and Ionizing Radiation," {Science}, 125(7255):
965, May 17, 1957. (The absence of chronic lymphatic leukemia deaths
lead Lewis to suggest that the excess deaths were due to radiation
exposure or some other factor acting in a similar manner.) Raymond
Seltser and Phillip Sartwell, "The Influence of Occupational Exposure
to Radiation on the Mortality of American Radiologists and Other
Medical Specialties," {American Journal of Epidemiology} (January
1965): 2-22.
15. "Job Hazards of Radiologists Studied," {Washington Star}, February 23,
1981; "Radiologists Take X-ray to Heart, Disputed Study Suggests,"
{Medical World News} 22, No. 6 (March 16, 1981): 36.
16. Herbert L. Abrams, "The `Overutilization' of X rays," {New England
Journal of Medicine} 300 (May 24, 1979): 1213-1216.
17. {Citizens' Hearings}, p. 93.
18. {1979 X-ray Hearings}, p. 75.
19. Arizona, California, Florida, Hawaii, Kentucky, Montana, New Jersey,
New York, Vermont, West Virginia, and Puerto Rico have operating
programs for licensing X-ray technologists. Delaware, Georgia,
Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, and Minnesota have enabling legislation to
begin licensing programs.
20. {1979 X-ray Hearings}, p. 69.
21. {1979 X-ray Hearings}, p. 8.
22. Abrams, "`Overutilization' of X rays," p. 1213.
23. DHEW, {Bulletin of the Bureau of Radiological Health, Supplement no. 1}
(Washington, D.C.: Department of Health, Education and Welfare, July
1976); U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and
Transportation, {Radiation Health and Safety}, June 16, 17, 27, 28, 29,
1977, p. 49. The Bureau of Radiological Health is following up on
facilities with readings above or below the average doses for certain
examinations and has reported significant drops in patient doses. Use
of gonad shielding is part of the educational programs for both medical
and general audiences.
------
X Rays {in Utero}
Though the X-ray industry and its medical proponents emphasize that
the doses from diagnostic radiation are small, considerable evidence
has surfaced indicating that the health effects can be devastating,
particularly to the unborn fetus.[24]
In fact, one of the world's first and biggest radiation surveys was
conducted in the mid-1950s on the effects of X rays on unborn
children, and it has had an important effect on all debate over safe
radiation exposures since.
The study began in 1955, when David Hewitt, a statistician at
England's Oxford University, noticed that in the preceding few years
there had been more than a 50 percent increase in the number of
British children dying of leukemia. His preliminary statistics
convinced Dr. Alice Stewart of Oxford's Department of Preventative
Medicine to search for a reason. Trained as a pediatrician and
epidemiologist, Stewart began crisscrossing Britain, persuading local
health officials to interview the mothers of each of the 1,694
children who died of cancer the previous two years. An equal number
of healthy mothers and children were used as controls.
As the interviews began to accumulate, a cause for the excess
cancers emerged. Stewart and Hewitt sifted through the data and found
that twice as many cancer deaths occurred before the age of ten among
children whose mothers had received a series of pelvic X rays while
pregnant.[25] "It was quite by accident that we bumped into the
radiation story," Stewart told us.[26]
The "accident" was not well received by either the medical community
or the nuclear industry. An X-ray picture of a fetus {in utero} had
been secured as early as February of 1896--two months after Roentgen's
discovery--and it had become common practice to use X rays to detect
multiple births or abnormal conditions in the uterus, and to clarify
the outlines of the mother's pelvis to aid in delivery.[27] Hewitt's
and Stewart's findings jeopardized those practices and threw into
doubt the entire foundation of the safety standards for radiation.
Such doses from X rays were believed to be safe. At the time their
study was issued, it was generally believed that the "threshold" below
which radiation exposure was safe was roughly ten rads. The new
findings indicated that a single rad of X-ray dosage to an infant {in
utero} could lead to a higher chance of childhood leukemia.[28]
Dr. Stewart soon found herself under a barrage of criticism. She
lost her staff and her funding for the Oxford survey. But she
continued nonetheless. In 1958, with an expanded data base, she
concluded that a fetus exposed in the first three months of
development was ten times more likely to develop cancer than an
unexposed fetus. The risk increased with the number of exposures,
even a single X ray was found to contribute. Stewart also found that
X rays to a woman who was not pregnant could also lead to damage in
future offspring. Women carry their eggs from birth, and Stewart
found the X rays would be particularly harmful if they affected the
mothers' ovaries.[29]
In 1962 Stewart's embattled study received powerful confirmation
from Dr. Brian MacMahon of the Harvard School of Public Health. A
study of 700,000 children born between 1947 and 1964 was conducted in
thirty-seven major maternity hospitals in the Northeast. MacMahon
compared the children of seventy thousand mothers who had received
pelvic X rays during pregnancy with the children of mothers who had
not been X-rayed. He found that cancer mortality was 40 percent
higher among the children with X-rayed mothers.[30] It was a stunning
confirmation of Stewart's findings, a crucial turning point in the
radiation controversy, and made essentially inescapable the conclusion
that the human fetus was far more vulnerable to miscarriage,
malformations, and cancer from X rays than anyone had previously
believed possible. In 1963 MacMahon told a Joint Committee on Atomic
Energy hearing on bomb fallout in southern Utah that "we must consider
very seriously the possibility of cancer production by low doses of
radiation such as encountered in x ray diagnosis and even
fallout."[31]
Yet two decades after Stewart first published her findings, and
fourteen years after MacMahon confirmed them, little had been done to
warn the public. A 1976 telephone survey by the New York Public
Interest Research Group indicated that women of childbearing age who
underwent X-ray examinations were often not asked beforehand if they
were pregnant.[32] At 1980 hearings for radiation victims, held in
Washington, Dr. Karl Z. Morgan remembered how he and others had
"fought for years to pass a recommendation . . . that women in the
childbearing age should not be given x rays in the pelvic and
abdominal region except during emergency situations and except during
the ten-day interval following the beginning of menstruation." The
failure of the X-ray industry to comply was, he said, "one of the
biggest problems in reducing the harmful effects of radiation."[33]
In 1970, the last year in which the federal government analyzed X-
ray records on a national scale, it found that 23 percent of the 3.5
million pregnant women in the United States were exposed to medical X
rays--some eight hundred thousand women. In 9 percent of these
cases--involving more than seventy thousand individuals--the fetus was
exposed to the X-ray beam. Five years later a study of sixty-eight
thousand single deliveries in sixteen hospitals during 1969 and 1970
estimated that pelvic X rays were given in 6.9 percent of the cases.
Current estimates indicate that pelvic X rays are still given in about
6 percent of all live births in the United States, though some
facilities administer them at a far higher rate.[34]
Unfortunately the practice of X-raying pregnant women already has
had tangible effects. In January of 1957 Emma Rita Mihal, an Ohio
housewife, visited an obstetrician and told him she was pregnant.
"But," she remembers, "he insisted that I was not pregnant" and then
ordered month-long radiation treatments for endometritis, an
inflammation of the lining of the womb. A few weeks after completion
of the treatment Mrs. Mihal returned to the obstetrician. The doctor,
she said, "took the stethoscope and he listened, and then . . . he
turned to me and said, `Mrs. Mihal, you are pregnant.' . . . It was
the last thing that man ever told me." Worried about what the
radiation treatment might have done to her unborn child, Mihal visited
her radiologist. "He took me by the shoulder and he said, `I want you
to go home, your baby will be fine.'" But when Kathleen Mihal was
born on September 19, 1957, she came into the world with the
undersized head of a microcephalic. Radiation burns scarred her back.
Mihal recalled that her doctors "never told me I shouldn't have
another child. I did become pregnant again, and here again my other
child is greatly damaged, because she has genetic damages. She was
very sickly from the day she was born."[35]
Though the Mihals' story was an extreme one, it and other cases
ultimately could not be ignored. Additional studies have now linked
X-ray doses to women {even before pregnancy} with significant rises
among offspring in Down's syndrome and fatal cancer before the age of
fifteen.[36] Finally, in April of 1980, the Bureau of Radiological
Health and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
launched a massive public education program warning of the damaging
effects of radiation (as well as certain drugs) on pregnancies.[37]
The consumer education program is part of BRH's nonpersonnel budget,
which was cut in fiscal year 1981 from $6.3 million to $6.1 million.
Projections for FY 1982 at the time of this writing put that budget at
$5.9 million.[38]
------
24. DHEW, {X-Ray Examinations A Guide to Good Practice} (Washington, D.C.:
Department of Health, Education and Welfare, 1970), p. 6. The unborn
face greater risk of radiation damage than adults receiving the same
amount of exposure. The stage of pregnancy determines, in large
measure, the type of fetal damage. During the first trimester risks of
accidental miscarriage, congenital malformation, and brain damage
predominate. From the ninth day through the sixth week of pregnancy,
organogenesis--the period of organ and limb development--occurs. The
greatest radiation-induced deformities can be produced because of the
specialized rapid development and division of cells and tissues. Ear,
nose, eye, and structural brain deformities can result.
25. Griffiths and Ballantine, {Silent Slaughter}, p. 41.
26. Alice Stewart, interview, November 1980.
27. Brecher and Brecher, {The Rays}, p. 60.
28. Stewart, et al., "Survey of Childhood Malignancies," {British Medical
Journal} (1958), p 1495.
29. Alice Stewart and George W. Kneale, "Radiation Dose Effects in Relation
to Obstetrics, X Ray and Childhood Cancer," {Lancet} 1 (1970):
1185-1187.
30. Brian MacMahon, "Prenatal X-ray Exposure and Childhood Cancer,"
{Journal of the National Cancer Institute} 28 (1962): 1173.
31. {Fallout, Radiation Standards and Countermeasures}, U.S. Congress,
Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Subcommittee on Research,
Development, and Radiation, August 20-22, 27, 1963, p. 595.
32. Deborah Van Brunt, {Consumer Perspectives on X Rays} (New York: New
York Public Interest Research Group, November 15, 1976).
33. {Citizens' Hearings}, p. 88.
34. "Considerations of Possible Pregnancy in the Use of Diagnostic X Rays,"
FDA Publication 75-8029, Health Physics in the Healing Arts, 7th
Mid-year Topic Symposium, Health Physics Society (Washington, D.C.:
DHEW, December 1972), p. 599; J. A. Campbell, "X-ray Pelvimetry:
Useful Procedure or Medical Nonsense," {Journal of National Medical
Association} 68 (November 1976): 514-520; K. M. Kelly, et al., "The
Utilization and Efficacy of Pelvimetry," {American Journal of
Roentgenology} 125, No. 1 (September 1975): 66-74.
35. {Citizens' Hearings}, p. 35; Robert W. Gibson, et al., "Leukemia in
Children Exposed to Multiple Risk Factors" {New England Journal of
Medicine} 279, No. 17 (October 24, 1960): 906-909.
36. Griffiths and Ballantine, {Silent Slaughter}, p. 46; A. T. Sigler, et
al., "Radiation Exposure in Parents of Children with Mongolism (Down's
Syndrome)," {Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin} 117 (December 1965):
374-399.
37. The FDA panel on X-ray pelvimetry approved the following statement on
January 26, 1979:
"Pelvimetry is not usually necessary or helpful in making the
decision to perform a cesarean section. Therefore, pelvimetry should
be performed only when the physician caring for the patient feels that
pelvimetry will contribute to the decisions concerning diagnosis or
treatment. In those few instances, the reason for requesting the
pelvimetry should be written on the patient's chart. This statement
does not apply to x-ray examinations for purposes other than
measurement of the pelvis."
This statement was subsequently approved and adopted by the American
College of Radiology in July 1980.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has approved
the following statement in June 1980, which is comparable to the panel
statement:
"X-ray pelvimetry provides limited additional information to
physicians involved in the management of labor and delivery. It should
not be a prerequisite to clinical decisions concerning obstetrical
management. Reasons for requesting x-ray pelvimetry should be
individually established."
FDA's public education campaign "X-Rays: Get the Picture on
Protection" includes American College of Obstetricians and
Gynecologists and FDA-approved materials on X rays and pregnancy. The
information is available free from: X Rays, FDA, Rockville, MD 20857.
38. A revised FDA operating budget of $336 million for fiscal 1982 has been
submitted to Congress by President Reagan. This is $16.9 million below
the request submitted in January by the previous administration. The
new proposed figures are:
{Fiscal Year Budget Paid Staff Years}
1981 $327 million 7,627
1982 $336 million 7,379
Source: FDA {Talk Paper}, March 10, 1981.
------
Mammography and Other Problems
Unfortunately, children {in utero} have not been the only ones to
suffer from the misuse of X-ray technology. One major program of X-
ray diagnosis--mammography, aimed at tracking down breast cancer in
women--has also resulted in disaster. Breast cancer is the leading
cause of death among American women between the ages of forty-four and
fifty-five. Apparently X rays have contributed to the problem rather
than helping to solve it.[39]
An X ray of the breast can reveal tumors in their early stages, and
thus can have beneficial results. But because the breast is highly
radiation-sensitive, the mammogram itself can cause cancer. The
danger can be heightened by the subject's genetic makeup, preexisting
benign breast disease, artificial menopause, obesity, and hormonal
imbalances. Ironically, because the breast tissue of younger women is
denser than that of older women, detection of their cancer through
mammography is more difficult, if not impossible, in many cases.
The idea of using X rays to detect breast cancer gained credence in
the 1930s. By the 1960s mammography was in common use, and a study
begun in 1963 by the Health Insurance Plan of New York (HIP) concluded
that mammography could reduce mortality rates among women.[40] In
1973 the American Cancer Society and National Cancer Institute
cosponsored the establishment of the Breast Cancer Detection
Demonstration Projects (BCDDP). Twenty-seven projects were
established with the goal of examining a quarter million women. The
project program included instruction in breast self-examinations, an
initial clinical history, and a physical examination which included a
thermogram (which uses an infrared camera to study body temperatures)
and a mammogram X ray. The entire program was repeated each year for
five years, with a five-year observation period after screening. By
1976 about eighteen hundred cases of breast cancer had been
detected.[41]
But the program took on the aura of a fad. In 1974, after Betty
Ford and Happy Rockefeller suffered mastectomies, the interest in
methods of preventing breast cancer soared. Rose Kushner, executive
director of the Maryland-based Breast Cancer Advisory Center, found
that "women all over the country were inundated with information about
this life-saving machine, and waiting lists for mammograms were often
months long. Omitted from this flood of media coverage, however, was
the behind-the-scenes conflict among scientists about the potential
danger of exposing healthy breasts to a known carcinogen: x ray."[42]
In January of 1975 Dr. John C. Bailar III published an article in
the {Annals of Internal Medicine} warning that the Health Insurance
Plan study, which had prompted so much faith in mammography, had not
in fact demonstrated any increase in survival rates among the women
under fifty who had been given the X rays.[43] Drs. Irwin Bross and
Leslie Blumenson of Buffalo's Roswell Park Memorial Laboratory soon
estimated that based on dosage levels, twice as many deaths as cures
could result from mammographic screenings.[44] By early 1977 Bross
had become an outspoken critic of the program, calling it a
"disastrous mistake" that would "produce the worst . . . epidemic of
cancer in medical history." At a meeting sponsored by the National
Cancer Institute, Bross accused the American Cancer Society and the
American College of Radiology of subjecting a quarter million American
women to X-ray dosages equivalent "to death warrants with a 15-year
delay in the execution."[45] Dr. Rosalie Bertell, a mathematician and
an expert in radiation and the causes of cancer, later explained that
a basic arithmetical error had been made in the design of the
mammography program, which may well have resulted in serious health
effects to early participants in the program. Some changes were made
after the error was pointed out, she said, but had the program
continued as originally planned, it might have caused up to twelve
breast cancers for every one it picked up. "A lot of this I blame on
the nuclear establishment," she said, "which has gone out of its way
to convince everybody that low level radiation is no hazard. The
nuclear physicist gives cancer risk per year, whereas health
professionals give reproductive lifetime (30 year) or lifetime (70
year) risk. A physician using a physicist's estimates and not noting
the timeframe difference will underestimate the risk." The medical
profession, she said, was also accepting the word of the weapons
industry about the magnitude of the risk per year, even if corrected
for longer time spans, letting nuclear physicists determine what doses
of radiation were safe, and what were not. Thus, she charged, "the
doctors have abdicated responsibility in this area."[46]
The medical establishment gradually responded to the criticism. In
August of 1976 the National Cancer Institute set interim guidelines
for X rays at the screening centers, warning that "we cannot recommend
the routine use of mammography in screening [women without
demonstrable symptoms] ages 35 to 50."[47] In 1977 the federal
government recommended that women below the age of fifty be X-rayed
only if they or a member of their immediate family had a history of
breast cancer. The American Cancer Society has suggested that women
under thirty-five be given mammographies only if there is clear
evidence of a need for it.[48]
Nonetheless the controversy continued. Leonard Solon, director of
New York City's Bureau of Radiation Control, worried in 1976 that
inadequate training was leading to faulty administration of
mammograms.[49] In 1977 the BRH found that roughly 35 percent of the
mammograms being taken had technical problems affecting their
usability.[50] Bross warned that "the irresponsible or incompetent
use of x ray" could not be stopped if health agencies waited for the
medical profession to give the word. "If one million women each
receive 1,000 millirem of x rays, between 50 and 200 can be expected
to develop breast cancer as a result," he said. "The risk for
radiation-induced breast cancer is higher than for all other
radiation-induced cancers, including thyroid, lung, leukemia, and bone
tumors."[51]
Though infants {in utero} and women have proved extremely sensitive
to X rays, the problem is not restricted to them. In the early 1960s
one of the largest radiation-related population studies ever done was
begun at Johns Hopkins University. Known as the Tri-State Leukemia
Survey, the study covered some six million subjects in New York,
Maryland, and Minnesota who had undergone diagnostic X rays. By 1972
results of an analysis by Dr. Bross and Nachimuthu Natarajan indicated
that children with chronic diseases were also at special risk from low
levels of X ray. The study also lent crucial confirmation to the
problem of {in utero} X rays, showing that children of mothers X-rayed
during pregnancy suffered 1.5 times the leukemia rate as children of
mothers not X-rayed. In certain selected sub-categories of children,
exposed groups are 5 or even 25 times as likely to develop leukemia as
is the general population.[52] Dr. Rosalie Bertell, in examining the
data, added that "young adults with asthmas, severe allergies, heart
disease, diabetes, arthritis and so on, were about 12 times as
susceptible to radiation-related leukemia as were healthy adults."
She measured the equivalence in effect of X ray and natural aging.
Although the aging acceleration had been recognized as radiation-
related, the effect had gone unmeasured. Nor had there been a full
accounting for what X rays might be doing to the gene pool. "I think
we need to face up not only to the long-term effects on the individual
of exposure to radiation," she warned, "but on the long-term effects
to the species."[53]
In May 1977 the outspoken Bross coauthored an article in the
{Journal of the American Medical Association}, blaming doctors for
excess cancers and increased risks of genetic damage because of misuse
of X rays. Within weeks he was notified that federal funding for his
work on the Tri-State Survey was being terminated. The National
Cancer Institute, which supported the survey for a decade, put two of
Bross's best-known opponents on its review committee. Said Bross:
"We became the most recent victims of a pattern of censorship and
repression that has been going on in the United States ever since the
furor over fallout from weapons."[54]
------
39. J. D. Boice, "Risk of Breast Cancer Following Low-Dose Radiation
Exposure," {Radiology} 131 (June 1979): 589-597; G. W. Beebe, et al.,
"Studies of the Mortality of A-bomb Survivors, Report 6, Mortality and
Radiation Dose, 1950-1974," {Radiation Research} 75 (July 1978): 138-
201; F. A. Mettler, "Breast Neoplasms in Women Treated with X-rays for
Acute Postpartum Mastitis," {Journal of the National Cancer Institute}
43 (October 1969): 803-811.
40. S. Shapiro, et al., {Changes in Five-year Breast Cancer Mortality in a
Breast Cancer Screening Program}, presented at the Seventh National
Cancer Conference (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1973), pp. 663-678.
41. Winifred F. Malone, "National Cancer Institute Guidelines for
Mammography," presented at Ninth National Conference on Radiation
Control, Seattle, Washington, June 19-23, 1977, p. 51.
42. {1979 X-ray Hearings}, p. 115.
43. John C. Bailar, "Mammography, A Contrary View," {Annals of Internal
Medicine} 84 (1976): 77-84.
44. I. D. Bross and Leslie Blumenson, "Screening Random Asymptomatic Women
Under 50 by Annual Mammographies: Does it Make Sense?" {Journal of
Surgical Oncology} 8, No. 5 (1976): 437-445.
45. I. D. Bross, "Written Statement Submitted for the NIH/NCI Consensus
Development Meeting on Breast Cancer Screening, September 14-16, 1977,
at the Invitation of Dr. Donald Frederickson," p. 1.
46. {Citizens' Hearings}, p. 85.
47. Diane Fink, "Letter of Screening Guidelines to Breast Cancer Center
Directors," August 1976.
48. "Modification #1, Operational Memorandum #6," Breast Cancer Detection
Demonstration Project, National Cancer Institute, May 5, 1977.
During a 1977 lecture Dr. Richard G. Lester of the University of
Texas Department of Radiology discussed the statistical limitations of
the screening program. There is a sharp increase in the incidence of
breast cancer among women between the ages of forty to forty-five. The
BCDDP program established the screening program at age thirty-five
because proponents "believed, despite the fact that it was more
recognized that the HIP Study showed no improvement in survivorship
under the age of 50, that techniques had improved enough so that such
an improvement would be demonstrated."
In October 1975 the National Cancer Institute initiated three
committees to review the use of X-ray mammography for women under age
fifty. One group, headed by Dr. Lester Breslow of UCLA, was to
estimate the benefits of adding mammography to history and physical
examination in the HIP breast-cancer screening project. The Breslow
report, presented in July 1976, recommended that routine mammographic
screening in women less than fifty years of age be discontinued; the
amount of radiation in mammography for women in all ages be
standardized at the lowest level possible for diagnostic quality; and
additional randomized clinical trials involving women under fifty be
carried out to more clearly define the value of mammography in relation
to other means of detecting breast cancer.
A second group, under the direction of Dr. Louis Thomas, a NCI
pathologist, reviewed the pathology data from the HIP survey. The
third group, under Dr. Arthur Upton, was asked to lead a group
evaluating the relation between the benefit and risk of mammographic
screening for the detection of breast cancer. The Upton report found
that although the risk of a mammogram increasing an individual's risks
of developing breast cancer was small, the total risk to a large
population of healthy women was not justified.
49. Leonard Solon, "The Options: New York City Mammography Regulations,"
presented at the Eighth National Conference on Radiation Control,
Springfield, Illinois, May 2-7, 1976, p. 241; M. J. Homer,
"Mammography Training in Diagnostic Radiology Residency Programs,"
{Radiology} 135, No. 2 (May 1980): 529-531.
In a letter to the {American Journal of Roentgenology} ("National
Conference on Breast Cancer: Adequacy of Mammography Training," 133,
No. 1 [July 1979]: 161) Dr. Marc J. Homer of the New England Medical
Center Hospital stated: "Not too long ago I prepared for my oral
boards in radiology. Though subjects as esoteric as congenital
hypophosphatemia and the Mounier-Kuhn syndrome were covered . . . I was
never required to learn mammography. Though last year I saw more
breast cancers on my viewbox than all the colon, stomach, and kidney
cancers combined, I never had to interpret a single mammogram as a
resident . . . Anything less than a resident learning the technical
and interpretative aspects of mammography is inadequate and will only
serve to keep mammography as a `second class radiology examination.'"
50. Ronald G. Jans and Thomas R. Ohlhaber, "Breast Exposure: Nationwide
Trends--Progress to Date," presented at Ninth Annual National
Conference on Radiation Control, Seattle, WA, June 19-23, 1977, p. 222.
51. Bross, "Written Statement," p. 2.
52. I. D. Bross and N. Natarajan, "Leukemia from Low Level Radiation:
Identification of Susceptible Children," {New England Journal of
Medicine} 287 (1972): 107-110; S. Graham, et al. "Methodological
Problems and Design of the Tri-State Leukemia Survey," {Annals of the
New York Academy of Science}, 107: 557-69 (1963).
53. {Citizens' Hearings}, p. 83; R. Bertell, "Radiation Exposure and Human
Species Survival," {Environmental Health Review}, June 1981, pp. 43-52.
54. I. D. Bross and N. Natarajan, "Genetic Damage from Diagnostic
Radiation," {Journal of the American Medical Association} 237 (May 30,
1977): 2399; and U.S. Congress, House Interstate and Foreign Commerce
Committee, Hearings on Effect of Radiation on Human Health, January-
February 1978 (Vol. I): p. 995.
------
Why So Many X Rays?
Proponents of atomic power and weaponry have long been concerned
that indications that small doses of X rays may be harmful would
reflect badly on the viability of atomic reactors and the safety of
bomb testing. Dr. Stewart's initial study, for example, was the first
major epidemiological indication that low-level fallout could be far
more dangerous than the currently accepted limits. In fact, even as
late as 1979, during the accident at Three Mile Island, nuclear
proponents were arguing that exposure levels from the plant were
comparable to a single X ray, and thus safe. But Dr. Stewart's study,
and a host of others, had indicated that even a single X ray could
have disastrous effects on an infant {in utero} and other susceptible
members of the community. As Dr. Allan Reiskin, professor of
radiology at the University of Connecticut, told a congressional
subcommittee in the wake of the accident, "these comparisons are
inappropriate because they fail to recognize dramatically different
distribution of radiation energies, different dose rates, different
types of radiation, and different types of population that are
irradiated."[55]
Another reason for an excess of X rays may be that they add to the
income of doctors and medical institutions. X-ray equipment is costly
and as the state of the art quickly changes, older but still usable
models become obsolete. Doctors who invest thousands of dollars in
X-ray machines may well be inclined to use them more than absolutely
necessary in an attempt to recoup their investment. Perhaps the
technology most vulnerable to this kind of financial consideration is
the new "computerized axial tomography scanning" machine--the CT
scanner. This device was introduced in 1973 and can perform precise
examinations of the brain and, more recently, the whole body. It
contains an X-ray tube and an electronic detector situated on a
circular track. While rotating, the scanner can take thousands of
radiographs in a few minutes and create a computer-processed cross-
section view of the patient's body on a video screen. A visual slice
can be taken of any body part.[56]
The CT scanner can be enormously useful--and also enormously
expensive, costing up to $1 million to buy and $500,000 per year to
maintain. A body scan can cost $250 (CT radiation therapy can run as
high as $36,000 per patient) and by the early 1980s more than two
million Americans were undergoing CT examinations each year.[57]
Unfortunately the radiation doses are not inconsiderable, ranging as
high as forty-five hundred millirems for some scans.[58]
The question must inevitably arise as to whether the machines once
bought might be overused for financial reasons. That question has
also arisen in the field of dental X rays. The average skin dose per
dental X-ray film is about 910 millirems, nearly triple the whole body
dose from background radiation. Though the dose to the bone is much
lower--four millirems--a full mouth series can involve sixteen or more
individual X-ray films and can deliver a substantial dose of radiation
to the mouth.[59] A 1976 telephone survey of five hundred New York
dentists by the New York Public Interest Research Group found that 89
percent of them ordinarily included a full set of full-mouth X rays
during a patient's first visit to the office. Nearly half the
dentists repeated X rays of the mouth at least once a year.[60]
According to radiological health specialist James L. Walker, many
dentists "feel that the dental x-ray is a tiny, tiny exposure and it's
not really a hazard."[61]
Unfortunately, many of the technicians administering dental X rays
are no better trained than those working in doctors' offices. And
though lead "bibs" have been recently introduced to protect patients
in some dentists' offices, sensitive organs such as the thyroid,
salivary glands, active bone marrow, and lymphatics are still being
exposed. Scatter radiation may also affect other parts of the body,
including the gonads, a particularly important problem among
children.[62]
Experts at the 1981 National Council on Health Care Technology
Conference on Dental Radiology agreed that dentists rely too much on X
rays. Conference participants concluded that X rays should be
administered only when clinically indicated, i.e., after the patient's
mouth has been visually examined and there appears to be a definite
need for more information.[63]
Another form of exploratory X ray under scrutiny is the use of chest
X rays to find cancers and tuberculosis. As early as 1965 the Public
Health Service called for an end to routine chest X rays as a means of
detecting tuberculosis. PHS argued that tuberculosis was on the
decline and that 95 percent of the people with active TB had been
identified without X-ray screening. PHS also learned that chest X-ray
units--many of which were mobile, moving around in vans--produced
higher levels of exposure than other radiological equipment, and that
a large segment of the population was receiving unnecessary amounts of
radiation with little return. Nonetheless X-raying of children with
mobile units continued essentially unabated until 1972, when the PHS
again called for an end to the practice, this time in conjunction with
the American College of Radiology and the American College of Chest
Physicians.[64]
Chest X rays remain a part of many routine health physicals and
screening programs aimed at finding heart and breathing diseases.
Serious questions have been raised by the Medical College of
Pennsylvania about their effectiveness in promoting early treatment of
lung cancer.[65] But in 1977 thirty-seven million chest X rays were
performed in hospitals across the country. In February of 1978
President Jimmy Carter approved a directive recommending, among other
things, that routine X-ray screening of patients who showed no
particular symptoms should be discontinued, except in specific
circumstances of high disease risk because of social or economic
factors.[66]
In April of 1979 the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals
announced that it no longer required or recommended routine laboratory
or X-ray examination upon admission to the hospital. In February of
1981, as part of the Reagan reductions in domestic expenditures, the
federal government saved four million dollars and perhaps numerous
lives by eliminating its program of routine chest X rays for some
160,000 government employees in thirty-seven agencies.[67]
But X rays continue to be prescribed and shot all over America in
what Irwin Bross has described as a "mindless" fashion.[68]
Ironically, one of the chief contributors to this ongoing exposure is
the American insurance program. Medical malpractice liability varies
from state to state. Numerous insurance companies require an X ray
before they will reimburse a patient for treatment. The Social
Security Act requires an X ray to be submitted as proof of need for
chiropractic treatment.[69]
Perhaps the worst problem resides in the medical malpractice laws.
These vary from state to state, but in general they are a strong
incentive to doctors to give numerous X rays far in excess of real
medical need, in the hopes of establishing a record with which to
defend themselves in case of a lawsuit. This "defensive medicine" can
be carried to extremes. Dr. John McClenahan, a Pennsylvania
radiologist, describes the syndrome thusly: " If a tennis player
suffers elbow pain after a truck scratched the fender of his car, a
radiologist will be called on to take pictures of not only the elbow,
but of a shoulder . . . a forearm, a neck, chest and, after the
diarrhea ensuing as the result of stress imposed by the accident, of
the patient's entire gastro-intestinal tract."[70] Though
radiologists and doctors may find such treatment excessive, few would
risk losing an expensive lawsuit by refusing to use it. A 1973 survey
by the Federal Commission on Medical Malpractice found that more than
half the doctors polled admitted to engaging in some form of defensive
medicine, and four years later an American Medical Association poll
found 75 percent of the doctors contacted were ordering extra X rays
to protect themselves from lawsuits.[71]
------
55. {1979 X-ray Hearings}, p. 10.
56. K. Z. Morgan, "The Need for Radiation Protection," {Radiologic
Technology} 44, No. 6 (1973): 385-395; OTA, {Policy Implications of
the Computerized Tomography (CT) Scanner} (Washington, D.C.: Office of
Technology Assessment, August 1978), pp. 15-20.
57. Michael Goldstein, "CT Benefits and Cost in Therapy," {Journal of the
American Medical Association} 244, No. 12 (September 19, 1980).
58. OTA, {Policy Implications}, p. 39.
59. DHEW, {Population Exposure to X rays U.S. 1970} (FDA) Publication
73-8047 (Washington, D.C.: Food and Drug Administration, November
1973), Appendix III; ICRP, {Protection of the Patient in X-ray
Diagnosis}, Publication No. 16 (New York: Pergamon Press, 1970).
60. Deborah Van Brunt, {Consumer Perspectives}.
61. Susan Lockamy, "X-Rays: Many Tidewater Dentists' Machines Exceed FDA
Levels," {Virginian-Pilot}, August 20, 1979.
62. S. Julian Gibb, "Radiation Risks in Dental Practice," prepared for the
Council on Dental Materials, Instruments, and Equipment, American
Dental Association, p. 12; Panati and Hudson, {Silent Intruder}.
63. {Washington Star}, July 2, 1981; National Council on Health Care
Technology, Conference on Dental Radiology, Arlington, Virginia, June
29-July 1, 1981.
64. Valerie Britain, "Mass Chest X Rays Are on the Way Out," {FDA
Consumer}, February 1973.
65. W. Weiss, et al., "The Philadelphia Pulmonary Neoplasm Research
Project, Thwarting Factors in Periodic Lung Cancer," {American Review
of Respiratory Diseases} 3, No. 30 (March 1975): 389-397.
66: {Federal Register}, February 1, 1978, pp. 4377-4380. Recommendation #3
of "Radiation Protection Guidance to Federal Agencies for Diagnostic X
Rays": "Routine or screening examinations in which no prior clinical
evaluation of the patient is made, should not be performed unless
exception has been made for specified groups of people on the basis of
a careful consideration of the magnitude and medical benefit of the
diagnostic yield, radiation risk, and economic and social factors.
Examples of examinations that would not be routinely performed unless
such exception is made are: a) chest and lower back x-ray examinations
in routine physical examinations or as a routine requirement for
employment; b) tuberculosis screening by chest radiography; c) chest
x rays for routine hospital admission of patients under age 20 or
lateral chest x rays for patients under age 40 unless a clinical
indication of chest disease exists; d) chest radiography in routine
prenatal care; e) mammography examinations of women under age 50 who
neither exhibit symptoms nor have a personal or strong family history
of breast cancer."
67. "X'ing Out Unneeded X Rays," {FDA Consumer}, April 1981, p. 19.
68. I. D. Bross, "An Action Program to Protect the Public Against the
Mindless Use of Diagnostic Radiation and Other Technology," June 17,
1977.
69. {1979 X-ray Hearings}, p. 162; U.S. Congress, House Interstate and
Foreign Commerce Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations, {Report on Unnecessary Exposure to Radiation from
Medical and Dental X-rays}, Committee Print 96-52, August 1980, pp.
3-7.
70. John McClenahan, "A Radiologist's View of the Efficient Use of
Diagnostic Radiation," presented at the Seventh Annual National
Conference on Radiation Control, Springfield, Massachusetts, April
27-May 2, 1975, p. 72.
71. {Medical Economics}, September 30, 1974, p. 75; "Fear of Lawsuits
Boosts MD Bills," {Buffalo Courier}, March 29, 1977.
------
Radiation Therapy
X rays and other forms of radiation have been used in medicine for
purposes other than taking diagnostic pictures. In the early days of
radioactive science it was widely believed that radium had immense
curative properties, in large part because its rays affected tissue
growth. Injection of radioactive materials into some tumors and
growths can reduce and destroy them; radiation can also be used to
destroy cancerous cells in the body, and arrest the spread of the
disease. Great care must be taken to ensure that all the cancerous
growth is destroyed and that none of the surrounding tissue is harmed.
The size, type, and location of the cancer dictates exactly the form
of therapy used.[72]
But the use of radiation as a medical treatment has often been
misunderstood and abused. Large amounts of radium, used as a source
of gamma rays, have been used to treat lupus, eczema, psoriasis, and
other skin diseases, and for removing benign skin tumors and moles.
Such radiation treatments were administered from the 1920s through the
1950s, and were also deemed acceptable for treating enlarged thymus
and thyroid glands, enlargement and inflammation of tonsils and
adenoids, deafness due to hypertrophy of lymphoid tissues around
eustachian tubes, ringworm of the scalp, cervical and other types of
inflammation, tuberculosis of cervical nodes, asthma, whooping cough,
and even breast problems after birth.[73] Throughout the 1950s
American children and adults were even allowed to have their feet X-
rayed in shoe stores to determine their proper size. The practice may
well have damaged millions of people's feet, and scatter radiation
from the relatively cheap machines may have done other damage as
well.[74]
Some of the more primitive applications of radiation persist. In
1981 we discovered pamphlets from two operating Montana "health spas"
advertising the benefits of radon gas in curing "arthritis, sinusitis,
migraine, eczema, asthma, hay fever, psoriasis, allergies, diabetes
and other ailments." The pamphlets claimed that by sitting in
abandoned mine shafts and breathing radioactive gases, people's pain
will disappear, joints will loosen, and skin lesions will heal.
Unfortunately, the pamphlets do not mention that it has been well
established for at least a decade that radioactive gas in uranium
mines is a cause of a fivefold increase in lung cancer among
miners.[75]
The toll from misdirected medical uses of radiation through the
decades is impossible to fully document. But there have been tragic
victims. One, a man named Joe Victor, told his story at the 1980
Citizens' Hearings for Radiation Victims in Washington. "I was burned
by x rays on my face," he told a packed hearing room. "I have had
more than twenty operations to remove the irradiated and malignant
skin that the radiation caused . . . I will be disfigured for the rest
of my life."
At the end of World War II, as a handsome young Marine, Victor
underwent radiation therapy for a facial rash called "barber's itch."
When the rash recurred in 1947, he again underwent therapy. Five
years later an X-ray technologist told him he thought Victor had been
overexposed. And when he visited a radiologist at a Veterans
Administration hospital in Boston, Victor was bewildered when "doctors
congregated around me. The one in charge asked the others a lot of
questions about how they would diagnose my problem, and then he turned
to them--I'll never forget it, he was very dramatic about it--and
said, `This is what happens when you guys are careless with x rays.'"
Later Victor called the radiologist who had treated him and was told
not to worry. But within ten years of his "treatment," Joe Victor
developed skin cancer on his nose, chin, neck, and eventually on his
chest. Huge pieces of flesh had to be removed from his face. Though
skillfully done, the reconstruction was patchy, discolored, scarred,
and incomplete. His nose was reshaped, his upper lip partly cut away,
and he was left unable to close his mouth. Scars left on his neck
resembled those of a burn victim, and his chest was permanently
disfigured. "I considered getting married," Victor testified. "But
aside from the problems my condition created in relationships with
women, I was also worried that all this radiation would affect any
kids I had. I would be afraid they would be deformed.
"What's happened, to put it bluntly, is that my life's been ruined,"
Victor added. "They tell me in the hospital now how I'm so well
adjusted. But you never really adjust."[76]
At the time Joe Victor was irradiated for a skin rash, faith in
radiation as a diagnostic aid and medical cure was nearly boundless.
X-ray therapy for a wide range of noncancerous illnesses of the head,
neck, and upper chest during childhood has, according to some studies,
resulted in a significant excess of both malignant and benign thyroid
tumors.[77] X rays used to treat illnesses related to the thyroid
directly have also resulted in that sensitive gland's being exposed.
Because much of the treatment was done in private doctors' or
radiologists' offices, there are no firm records on how many people
received such treatment and who they were. But the National Cancer
Institute estimated the number to be as high as four million.[78]
Meanwhile the use of radioactive substances to treat a wide range of
diseases--and particularly cancer--is becoming increasingly
sophisticated. There continues to be widespread debate over the
advisability of such therapy, and the possibilities of natural,
alternative cures. There has also been some tragic fallout.
In the late 1970s James L. Kline of Hagerstown, Maryland, suffered
an overdose of radiation which was given him as a precaution after the
surgical removal of his prostate gland. The radiation burned away his
buttocks and destroyed his right hip, leaving him, in the words of his
lawyer, "hopelessly and totally disabled." Bedridden since May 1978,
Kline recently won a two-million-dollar malpractice settlement.[79]
Despite Kline's case and a growing controversy over the uses and
abuses of radiation, portions of the medical profession remain
enthusiastic. "Recent advances in radiation therapy allow the maximum
potential cure with the minimum of side-effects, such as nausea,
vomiting, skin reactions and scarring," says Dr. Luther W. Brady, Jr.,
of Philadelphia's Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital. "With a
growing number of early cancer patients, radiation therapy techniques
are emerging that are as viable now as radical therapy."[80]
But the question remains whether this early enthusiasm for yet
another use of radiation may someday result in a long list of tragic,
unexpected side effects, as has the use of medical X rays.
------
72. Brecher and Brecher, {The Rays}, pp. 137-160.
73. E. L. Saenger, et al., "Neoplasia Following Therapeutic Irradiation for
Benign Conditions in Childhood," {Radiology} 74 (June 1960): 880-884;
L. H. Hemplemann, et al., "Neoplasms in Persons Treated with X-rays in
Infancy: Fourth Survey in 20 Years," {Journal of the National Cancer
Institute} 50, No. 3 (September 1975) 519-530; NAS, {A Review of the
Use of Ionizing Radiation in the Treatment of Benign Diseases}
(Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, September 1977).
74. Karl Z. Morgan and J. E. Turner, {Principles of Radiation Protection}
(New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1967), p. 49.
75. Merry Widow Health Mine (P.O. Box 3444, Basin, MT 59631), pamphlet;
and Sunshine Health Mine (Box E, Boulder, MT 59632), pamphlet.
76. {Citizens' Hearings}, p. 80
77. B. J. Duffy and P. J. Fitzgerald, "Cancer of the Thyroid in Children:
A Report of 28 Cases," {Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and
Metabolism} 10 (October 1950): 1296-1308; T. Winship, "Symposium of
Thyroid Tumors: Carcinoma of the Thyroid in Children," {Transactions
of the American Goiter Association}, 1951, p. 364; T. Winship and
W. W. Chase, "Thyroid Carcinoma in Childhood, a Report of 275 Cases,"
{Surgical, Gynecology and Obstetrics} 101 (August 1955): 217-224;
E. M. Uhlmann, "Cancer of the Thyroid and Irradiation," {Journal of
the American Medical Association} 161 (1956): 504-507.
78. Margaret H. Sloan, "Thyroid Irradiation Followup Studies," presented
at the Ninth Annual Conference on Radiation Control, Seattle,
Washington, June 19-23, 1977, p. 369.
79. Chip Brown, "Maryland Cancer Patient Gets $3 Million in Malpractice
Claim," {Washington Post}, February 26, 1981. The award was eventually
lowered to $2 million. Loretta Tofani, "Malpractice Award Is Cut to $2
Million," {Washington Post}, February 27, 1981.
80. Lawrence Galton, "New Victories for Radiation Therapy," {Parade
Magazine}, March 1, 1981.
------
* * * * * * *
[part 8 of 18]
7
Nuclear Workers: Radiation on the Job
While the use of radiation in medicine has led to some unpleasant
surprises, its presence in the workplace has served as a sort of
early-warning system to the general population. "Since workers are
first exposed and most heavily exposed," writes Dr. Irving Selikoff,
"the workers give us first indication. Most things that cause cancer
in society are discovered in the workplace."[1] Ever since Czech
miners began digging for uranium four centuries ago, evidence has been
piling up to indicate that radioactivity has been killing and
debilitating people who work with it. Unfortunately the nuclear
industry and its supporters in government have consistently resisted
that conclusion, even to the point of suppressing numerous broad-based
studies they themselves commissioned and then quashed when the
conclusions went the "wrong" way.
The key point of debate has centered on how much radiation was
really considered safe. Since 1898, when Pierre and Marie Curie began
working with radium in a run-down shed outside Paris, millions of
people have worked in diverse industries that use radioactive
materials in such varied applications as the making of false teeth and
numerous industrial products, the painting of watch dials, the
shooting of X rays, and the building of atomic bombs and power plants.
Because it cannot be smelled, tasted, seen, heard, or felt, early
physicists assumed that radiation was not dangerous unless it produced
immediate, visible effects, such as skin burns. Soon it began to dawn
on those close to the field that there might be other effects, and
standards began to come into existence in succeeding years on a hit-
and-miss basis. The first exposure standards, set in the 1920s,
allowed workers to receive as much as 730 rems per year--146 times the
current U.S. limit.[2] By the 1940s it was widely acknowledged that
radiation did cause cancer. But the prevailing scientific view at
that time was that there was a safe "threshold" of exposure below
which radiation caused no harm. If that particular "harmless" dose
could be found, then a permanent standard could be set.
While the search for the threshold went on, it became well known
that radium-dial painters who had ingested bits of radium in their
work were suffering agonizing deaths from cancer. In 1941 a standard
that limited radium ingestion was set based on their experience.[3]
By 1959 industry-wide concern over genetic damage and other
radiation-related disease had grown to the point where an across-the-
board limit of five rems per year was set for all radiation-related
work. The formal limit persisted through 1981, but various loopholes
in the standards allowed a worker to legally receive as much as
forty-two rems per year. And in the late 1970s industry and its
supporters began a concerted move to raise exposure limitations in the
workplace.[4]
Meanwhile, by 1980, EPA estimates put the number of Americans
working with radiation at 1.5 million. At least eight federal
departments, two independent scientific advisory committees, and fifty
states have some authority over worker protection.[5] As an editorial
in the prestigious journal {Health Physics} put it in August 1980:
"Policies vary from location to location. Regulations and regulatory
guidance are in such a hopeless muddle that it is impossible to derive
consistent practices. Thus many exposures . . . go unrecorded or
unrecognized."[6]
Perhaps more important for the general public, the debate over what
is thought to be a "safe" dose of radiation rages on, with people who
work with radiation serving as society's guinea pigs. By the mid-
1970s the federal government and the broad mainstream of independent
radiation specialists had agreed that it was simply impossible to set
a 100 percent safe level of exposure. The extreme vulnerability of
children, the potential for genetic damage, and variations in
individual susceptibilities made even the tiniest bit of exposure
potentially lethal. As the studies of Hewitt, Stewart, and Kneale had
shown in England, small doses of X ray had already proven far more
dangerous than previously believed.
And now, with billions of dollars invested, radiation and its
dangers became the core of yet another debate, this time with the
health of workers at center stage, but with serious implications for
the well-being of the global community at stake.
------
1. D. Zinman, B. Wyrick, and B. Hevisi, "Job-Related Diseases Kill 300 a
Day," {Newsday}, February 9, 1977.
2. David M. Scott, "A Review of Radiation Protection Principles and
Practices and the Potential for Worker Exposure to Radiation," a
research report for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and
Health (NIOSH), March 30, 1980, pp. 10-13 (hereafter cited as
"Scott/NIOSH Report").
3. Ibid.
4. According to Volume 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 20
(10 CFR), a radiation worker can receive three rems per quarter or
twelve rems total body exposure in a given year using the 5(n-18) age
averaging formula. By adding the thirty-rem bone or thyroid dose
permitted under these regulations, the forty-two-rem figure is arrived
at. In 1977 the International Commission on Radiological Protection
(ICRP) issued worker exposure recommendations in their Publication
No. 26 (ICRP No. 26, Pergamon Press) which would have the effect of
increasing single organ exposures significantly. For example, the
current thyroid dose of thirty rems would be raised to fifty rems in
cases where radiation is deposited in one organ alone. ICRP No. 26 in
terms of regulations would raise twenty-three out of forty-nine maximum
permissible concentrations of airborne radioactivity in the workplace
--such as strontium 90, which would be increased by a factor of
seventeen.
5. Robert Alvarez, "Statement before the House Government Operations
Subcommittee on Energy, Environment, and Natural Resources, July 14,
1978" (available from the Environmental Policy Center, 317 Pennsylvania
Ave. SE, Washington, D.C. 20003).
6. Ronald Katheren, "What Is Occupational Exposure?" {Health Physics},
39, No 2 (August 1980): 141.
------
The Mancuso Report
At the heart of the conflict sits a quiet, unassuming health-
research pioneer named Dr. Thomas Mancuso. A spry man in his late
sixties, Mancuso walks daily to an office cluttered with computer
printouts at the University of Pittsburgh. The printouts form the
basis of Mancuso's research in occupational health, a field he has
helped nurture since seventeen years of service as director of the
Ohio Department of Industrial Hygiene in the 1940s and 1950s. During
those years Mancuso helped write one of the nation's first
occupational disease codes, and he pioneered a method of studying
long-term health effects based on Social Security data, which has
essentially revolutionized occupational cancer research. Given a
career award by the National Cancer Institute as one of America's top
researchers, Mancuso linked heightened cancer rates to work in the
rubber, chemical dye, asbestos, chromate, and beryllium industries.[7]
Because of his unique prestige and unquestioned scientific
integrity, Mancuso was approached in 1964 by the Atomic Energy
Commission to study the potential health effects of work in their
facilities at Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Savannah River, South Carolina;
Los Alamos, New Mexico; and Hanford, Washington.
The AEC was then under fire from opponents of bomb testing and, as
AEC adviser Brian MacMahon put it, "much of the motivation for
starting this study arose from the `political' need for assurance that
AEC employees are not suffering harmful effects." Though they knew
Mancuso's study would be extensive, AEC administrators expected it to
prove nothing. Some referred to it as "Mancuso's folly" and openly
viewed it as a public-relations sham.[8]
But what Mancuso actually found turned out to be more than they
bargained for. His investigation--which constituted one of the
largest and probably the most reliable of all the epidemiological
studies on the health effects of radiation--proved conclusively that
exposure levels in industry were far too high, and that the health
effects of emissions from nuclear power plants and fallout from
nuclear bombs may be far worse than suspected. When Mancuso's first
results were finally published in 1977, the industry response changed
rapidly from bemused tolerance to outright suppression, including
attacks on Mancuso's findings and reputation, and an attempt to
physically remove the data from his possession.
Trouble had surfaced even before 1977. Mancuso's methods were
necessarily slow, but the AEC desperately wanted to have something
with which to assure the public their industry was safe. In the early
1970s, after about a decade, the commission was looking for ways to
phase Mancuso out. Mancuso, however, continued to resist pressure to
force publication of his preliminary findings, essentially because he
knew it could take up to thirty years for cancers to surface in
affected workers. His data only began in the mid-1940s, and Mancuso
wanted to wait before terming any findings "conclusive."[9]
Then, in the summer of 1974, the situation changed abruptly. The
problem focused on the massive AEC installation at Hanford,
Washington, where a reactor complex--which produced the plutonium for
the bomb dropped on Nagasaki--a waste dump, and other nuclear
facilities were operating. As one of the oldest and largest nuclear
facilities in the world, Hanford was--and is--a keystone to the
American nuclear weapons program.
The controversy began there when Dr. Samuel Milham, an
epidemiologist with the Washington State Department of Health, noticed
a 25 percent cancer excess among Hanford nuclear workers when compared
with the rates among the state's nonnuclear workers. Milham also
found four cases of multiple myeloma, when less than one would
normally be expected.[10] It was the same disease found among GIs who
first went into Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the bombings.
When the AEC got wind of Milham's findings, Mancuso's contract
officer called on Mancuso to issue a statement attacking Milham and
contending that his own figures showed there was no problem at
Hanford. Mancuso was stunned. He knew Milham to be a reliable
researcher, and he had no intention of publishing any of his own data
at that point. His initial findings were proving negative, but he
felt that publishing anything then--especially in light of what Milham
had found--was "premature."[11]
That, apparently, was intolerable to the AEC. In less than a year
Mancuso got word that his funding would be gradually shut off, and
that by 1977 he would be compelled to turn over his enormous store of
data to the federal government. The 18-month "grace period" was
essentially to allow Mancuso time to organize his files, and to ease
the political impact of an action the authorities hastened to describe
as strictly "administrative."[12]
Meanwhile the AEC commissioned Battelle Northwest, a think tank with
extensive Hanford contracts, to reassess Milham's findings. According
to AEC records, the study found precisely what the government did not
want to hear--"that there is a relationship between cancer as a cause
of death and the total dose of external radiation received."[13] Alex
Fremling, manager of the Hanford Research Lab, lamented that "the
message is clear that Battelle's data suggests that Hanford has a
higher proportion of cancer deaths for those under 65 than the U.S."
But, Fremling continued, "even more disturbing from our standpoint"
was the fact that "the analysis tends to show a much higher incidence
of certain types of cancer" even among those exposed to levels of
radiation believed to be "safe." Thus, Fremling concluded, "we hoped
to get a good answer to the Milham report, and instead it looks like
we have confirmed it."[14] The Battelle study was quickly buried.
But Thomas Mancuso persisted. In the wake of the Milham affair he
turned to Dr. Alice Stewart, the internationally recognized British
X-ray researcher and a member of his advisory committee. With the
help of statistician George Kneale, Stewart carefully examined
Mancuso's data at their office at England's University of Birmingham.
In the summer of 1976 they showed definitively that there were
indications of 5 to 7 percent excess in radiation cancer deaths among
Hanford workers at exposure levels as much as thirty times {below}
what had been considered safe.[15]
The Mancuso-Stewart-Kneale findings were shattering not only to the
industry, but to public perceptions of what might be a safe dose of
radiation from reactors, bomb tests, or a nuclear war. As described
by the 1980 {Encyclopaedia Britannica}, the survey had become "the
largest study of a normal adult population exposed to low-levels of
ionizing radiation" in the world.[16] Because it was a largely
homogeneous sample of relatively healthy white males whose exposure
and health histories had been carefully recorded, there was little
reason to doubt its conclusions. And the study had shown, quite
simply, that human beings were up to thirty times more sensitive to
radiation-induced cancer than previously believed.
Now the AEC turned the tables on Mancuso. Having demanded that he
publish his preliminary findings to attack Milham, the AEC now exerted
enormous pressure to keep Mancuso's final statistics out of print.
"They were clearly unhappy," Mancuso told us. "They urged us not to
publish. . . . My job in their eyes was simply to transfer the data
to them."[17]
By the fall of 1977 Mancuso's research funds had run out. In
November he published his paper in {Health Physics}, creating a
firestorm of controversy. Though he continued to draw a salary from
the University of Pittsburgh, Mancuso had no funds with which to
continue his research. Though it was a bare fraction of what was
needed, Mancuso began cutting into his personal retirement money to
continue working on the Hanford study. Meanwhile the federal
government persisted in its attempts to take the data away from him.
But it also had come under public attack for its treatment of
Mancuso. Under pressure, Dr. James Liverman, who had been director of
the AEC's Division of Biology and Medicine, explained that Mancuso was
being fired because of his "imminent retirement" from the University
of Pittsburgh. On that basis, he said, the Mancuso study was being
moved to the government-controlled Oak Ridge Associated Universities.
Liverman failed to note, however, that Mancuso had a full eight years
left in his position with the University of Pittsburgh. Liverman
arranged for the Hanford portion of the Mancuso study to be handed
over to Battelle Laboratories, where the same former AEC official who
had tried to use Mancuso to attack the first warning signals of a
problem at Hanford would now be in charge of further investigations
into the situation at Hanford.[18] Liverman also charged that an
early peer review of Mancuso's work had been critical of him, when in
fact it had lauded his capabilities and recommended that the study be
continued under his control.[19]
By January of 1978 the public furor over Mancuso's findings and
other radiation-related issues had led to a congressional
investigation and to hearings in front of the House Commerce
Subcommittee on Health and the Environment. The hearings marked a
major watershed in the controversy over the health effects of
radiation, signaling the first major congressional attention given not
only the Mancuso report but also the facts of high exposures to the
250,000-plus military personnel used as "guinea pigs" during atomic
bomb tests.[20]
In the course of the hearings Congressmen Paul Rogers (D-Fla.) and
Tim Lee Carter (D-Tenn.) charged that the justifications for the
decision to fire Mancuso were "not supported" and the decision to
transfer Mancuso's study to Oak Ridge was "highly questionable at
best." The whole process, they said, reflected "serious mismanagement
and is of highly questionable legality."[21]
Nonetheless the attacks continued. Mancuso kept the study going
with private donations and his retirement money until August of 1979,
when labor-union pressure forced the National Institute of
Occupational Safety and Health to reinstate the study. But in the
spring of 1981 the Reagan administration notified Mancuso his funding
would once again be cut off.
------
7. Thomas F. Mancuso, "Methods of Study of the Relations of Employment and
Long-term Illness by Cohort Analysis," {American Journal of Public
Health}, 1959.
8. Thomas F. Mancuso, interview, October 1980; Professor Brian MacMahon,
letter to Leonard Sagan, AEC contract officer, November 8, 1967.
9. In a draft memorandum from Sidney Marks, Mancuso's AEC contract
officer, dated February 20, 1973, Marks stated that "unless an
immediate replacement [for Mancuso] is found, a public charge may be
made that the AEC is stopping the program out of fear that positive
findings will emerge." Marks continued by adding ". . . overtures to
possible candidates must be carried out in a clandestine atmosphere
. . ." to phase out the uncooperative Mancuso.
10. Samuel Milham, Jr., "Increased Cancer Mortality Among Male Employees
of the Atomic Energy Commission, Hanford Facility, Washington, June
1974," unpublished manuscript.
11. Mancuso interview.
12. U.S. Congress, House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce,
Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, {Effect of Radiation on
Human Health}, 95th Cong., 2nd sess., January 24-26, February 8, 9, 14,
and 28, 1978, Serial No. 95-179, Vol. 1, p. 523.
13. Draft AEC Memorandum, from Alex Fremling, AEC Director of the Hanford
Research Laboratory, July 17, 1975.
14. Ibid.
15. Thomas F. Mancuso, Alice M. Stewart, and George W. Kneale, "Radiation
Exposures of Hanford Workers Dying from Cancer and Other Causes,"
{Health Physics Journal} 33, No. 5 (November 1977): 369-384; Mancuso,
et al., "A Reanalysis of Data Relating to the Hanford Study of the
Cancer Risks of Radiation Workers," {International Atomic Agency
Symposium Proceedings on the Late Biological Effects of Ionizing
Radiation}, Vienna, Austria, 1978, IAEA-SM-224/510; Stewart, et al.,
"Hanford IIb, The Hanford Data--a Reply to Recent Criticisms," {Ambio}
9 (June 1980): 66-73; Kneale, et al., "Hanford III, a Cohort Study of
the Cancer Risks from Radiation to Workers at Hanford (1944 to 1977
deaths) by Method of Regression Models in Life-Tables," {British
Journal of Industrial Medicine} (in press), summer 1981; Mancuso, et
al., "Hanford IIIb, Delayed Effects of Small Doses of Radiation
Delivered at Slow Dose Rates," {Proceedings of a Symposium on
Industrial Cancers}, Cold Spring Harbor, Banberry Center, Long Island,
N.Y., March 1981.
16. Karl Z. Morgan, "The Hazards of Low-Level Radiation," {Encyclopaedia
Britannica}, 1980 edition.
17. Mancuso interview.
18. U.S. Representatives Paul Rogers and Tim Lee Carter, letter to James
Schlesinger, secretary, Department of Energy, May 4, 1978 (hereafter
cited as "Rogers, Carter letter to Schlesinger").
19. Ibid.
20. "Statement of Donald M. Kerr, acting assistant secretary for defense
programs, Department of Energy," {Effect of Radiation on Human Health},
January 26, 1978, pp. 331-404.
21. "Rogers, Carter letter to Schlesinger."
------
Responses to the Mancuso Report
Mancuso's critics--including his former project manager--have
consistently conceded that his data indicate an excess of bone-marrow
and pancreatic cancers among the Hanford workers. But the critics
contend that a carcinogen other than radiation must be involved.[22]
The prime basis for that contention comes from a government-
sponsored investigation into the Japanese casualties at Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. According to official interpretations of that study, dose
estimates from the Japanese bombings would indicate that similar
effects surfacing in the Mancuso data were "impossible" given the
reported levels of radiation at Hanford. But the bomb study itself
has since come under devastating reevaluation, and it may in fact
confirm rather than deny Mancuso's conclusions.[23]
The study was begun in 1950 under the auspices of a high-level U.S.
Government group called the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC).
Beginning its work a full five years after the bombings, the ABCC was
dominated by members of the Atomic Energy Commission. Though the
board was originally composed almost entirely of Americans, the
Japanese government has recently taken an increasingly important role.
Essentially the ABCC undertook to reconstruct the bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki through computer models designed to estimate
the doses received by local victims and to apply that to what could be
learned about their health histories after the bombings. The study
has served in part as the basis for the five-rem annual exposure
standards in the workplace, and as the pace-setter for calculating all
other dose levels for the general public. Moreover, it has been used
as the scientific litmus test for all other radiation studies.
Unfortunately the ABCC study has been seriously flawed. Its dose
estimates result from computer models built around atomic tests
conducted in the U.S.; the blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not
monitored, and the actual doses they delivered are not precisely
known. The ABCC study is considered in the scientific community to be
a "high-acute dose" study, for the obvious reason that the people of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were hit with a massive "burst" of radiation.
But the results of the ABCC study have consistently been applied to
long-term exposures of low doses of radiation, which may well be an
entirely different type of medical response. The Mancuso study is
acknowledged as the largest of the "low-dose" studies because the
workers involved were exposed over long periods of time to measured
low-level exposures.
The ABCC has also been highly secretive about its data, with access
given only to a select group of scientists--leading to the criticism
that only those friendly to the nuclear industry have been allowed to
use this seminal information. Japanese scientists have also charged
that the data have been kept from them and systematically dominated by
Americans who might have an interest in discouraging compensation
claims from Japanese victims of the bombing.[24] Indeed, in 1957 Dr.
John Gofman, a leading atomic scientist and at that time a strong
industry supporter, was told outright by a military scientist that
data were being manipulated to prepare "for the time when survivors
tried to collect compensation."[25]
Additional scientific questions about the study have been raised
over the nature of the populations of the two afflicted cities. The
systematic analysis of what happened to them did not begin until 1950,
and thus there is little base-line data about what occurred in those
crucial five years after the bombs were dropped. Nonetheless, for
statistical purposes the ABCC began its studies by assuming that the
Hiroshima and Nagasaki populations of 1950 could serve as a viable
test sample.[26]
But Dr. Alice Stewart has challenged that assumption. Aberrations
inflicted among the survivors of the bombings had, she said, created a
population that was both atypical and prone to diseases caused by
bone-marrow scarring and other effects that might not turn up in the
ABCC calculations. After an in-depth independent study she concluded
that a more realistic appraisal of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki populations
might well reveal that the radiation effects of the bombings were ten
times more serious than what the ABCC was saying--and thus the entire
issue of what constituted a "safe" radiation dose was very much in
doubt. "The A-bomb survivors are a highly abnormal population,"
Stewart told us in a 1980 interview. "It seems incredible that
radiation standards for workers and the general public would be based
on A-bomb survivors when we now have data on normal, healthy workers
from the Mancuso study."[27]
The flow of new scientific evidence seems to be going Dr. Stewart's
way. In August 1981 Iwanami Shoten of Tokyo and Basic Books of New
York jointly published {Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical, Medical
and Social Effects of the Atomic Bombings}, the first comprehensive
survey of the damage done by the nuclear attacks. Compiled by a team
of Japanese scientists and social workers, the massive volume
delineated the "irreversible injury" to human cells, tissues, and
organs which still plagued bomb victims, causing a rise in deaths from
leukemia and on-going suffering from other blood diseases, cataracts,
genetic damage, nervous system disorders, and a general loss of
disease-resistance. According to the study, which received worldwide
attention, the overall toll from the bombs was far more serious than
previous surveys had indicated.[28]
Similar revisions with specific focus on radiation damage were
already being fiercely debated. In 1980 a key high-level study
group--the National Academy of Sciences Advisory Committee on the
Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (the BEIR committee)--used
ABCC data to conclude that workplace cancer risks from radiation had
been overestimated by a factor of two. The committee's chairman, Dr.
Edward Radford, disagreed, arguing that exposure levels to workers
should in fact be tightened by a factor of ten. Nationally known as a
leading expert in the radiation field, Radford was subsequently
excluded from key final BEIR committee deliberations.
But in early 1981 supporters of relaxed standards in the workplace
and elsewhere were given a devastating shock. Researchers at the
Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California and at the Oak Ridge
National Laboratory in Tennessee were forced to conclude that the
doses received by the people of Hiroshima thirty-five years earlier
had been seriously misinterpreted. "Some of the most important data
on the effects of nuclear radiation on humans may be wrong," wrote
{Science} magazine. The amount of neutron radiation delivered by the
bombs had been grossly overestimated, perhaps by a factor of ten.
Thus the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have suffered cancer and
other radiation side effects from doses far smaller than previously
believed. That meant the radiation itself was far more deadly. "The
new findings are far from welcome," one consultant told {Science}.
All the revisions were "moving in the wrong direction" because they
now indicated that low doses of radiation could kill far more people
than anyone had previously thought possible--the very conclusion to
which Thomas Mancuso's work had been pointing since 1977.
The impact of the new findings was hard to overstate. "The
implications are far-reaching for health regulation and nuclear power
in this country in general," said David Auton, a physicist with the
Defense Nuclear Agency. Standards for neutron radiation in particular
might have to be tightened by a factor of ten and on crucial jobs, the
nuclear industry might have to hire ten times as many people.
Exposure levels for people living near nuclear power plants would have
to be reevaluated, as would potential casualty statistics for a
nuclear war. The new data said Dr. Arthur Upton, former director of
the National Cancer Institute, greatly strengthened the argument that
there is no "safe" level of exposure to radiation.[29]
------
22. George Hutchinson, Charles Land, Brian MacMahon, and Seymour Jablon,
"Review of Report by Mancuso, Stewart and Kneale of Radiation Exposure
of Hanford Workers," {Health Physics Journal} 37 (August 1979):
207-220; Ethyl S. Gilbert and Sidney Marks, "An Analysis of Mortality
of Workers in a Nuclear Facility," {Radiation Research} 79 (1979):
122-148.
23. "New A-Bomb Studies Alter Radiation Estimates," {Science} 212 (May
1981) (hereafter cited as "New Studies Alter Estimates").
24. Frank Barnaby, {Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists}, December 1977,
p. 50.
25. John W. Gofman, interview, February 1981.
26. See Gilbert W. Beebe, et al., {Life Span Study Report 8, Mortality
Experience of Atomic Bomb Survivors, 1950-74}, Technical Report
TR 1-77, Radiation Effects Research Foundation.
27. Alice M.Stewart, interview, September 1980; Alice M. Stewart, "Delayed
Effects of A-Bomb Radiation--a Review of Recent Mortality Rates and
Risk Estimates for Five Year Survivors," submitted to the {British
Journal of Epidemiology}, May 1981 (available through the Environmental
Policy Institute, 317 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, Washington, D.C. 20003).
28. The Committee for the Compilation of Materials on Damage Caused by the
Atomic Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, translated by Eisei Ishikawa
and David L. Swain, {Hiroshima and Nagasaki The Physical, Medical and
Social Effects of the Atomic Bombings} (New York: Basic Books, 1981).
See also, Herbert Mitgang, "Study of Atom Bomb Victims Stresses
Long-Term Damage," {New York Times}, August 6, 1981, p. A8.
29. "New Studies Alter Estimates."
------
Death in the Mines
Though the Mancuso and Hiroshima/Nagasaki studies based their
conclusions on data dating to the 1940s, deaths from radiation
exposure among workers have occurred for four centuries, since the
beginnings of the uranium-mining industry. As early as the sixteenth
century, miners in the Erz Mountain region of what is now
Czechoslovakia complained of a chest disease they called "mountain
sickness." The ore they dug was pitchblende--uranium--which served as
a pigment in pottery and lent sparkle to ornaments used by European
royalty. The disease it brought caused deep, stabbing pains,
difficult breathing, and an early death.
By the 1870s pioneer health researchers had identified the disease
as lung cancer. An early epidemiologist named Arnstein recorded a 40
percent cancer death rate among Czech uranium miners. In 1939 a
researcher named Peller reported that the lung-cancer death rate among
those miners was twenty times higher than that among control subjects
in Vienna. J. A. Campbell, an Englishman, found that mice exposed to
dust from those mines developed lung tumors at a rate ten times
normal.[30]
The source of the problem was radon gas, which is naturally emitted
in small quantities from uranium ore. This gas, in turn, decays into
heavy isotopes called "radon daughters," including isotopes of
polonium, bismuth, and lead. Unlike the gas that carries them, some
of these isotopes have extremely long half-lives. They emit dangerous
alpha particles; minuscule amounts of them can cause cancer when they
are introduced into the body. Underground, the radon gas from uranium
ore is trapped long enough for its "daughters" to be deposited as
solids in the earth. But when the ore is exposed to air, as it is
when mined, the gas escapes. Miners without adequate protection
inevitably inhale that gas--and its lethal alpha-emitting
"daughters."[31]
Such dangers were already well known in the 1940s and 1950s, when
the pressure to build atomic bombs and fuel reactors sent prospectors
into the western hills to find uranium. Much of it was discovered on
Indian land. Soon hundreds of miners--many of them Native Americans-
-were at work digging out the radioactive ore.
But precious few of them were warned of any special dangers in the
mines. Working conditions were, as one researcher put it, "medieval,"
probably not significantly better than in the Czech mines of the
1500s. One particular problem arose when mine owners used explosives
to loosen ore. "When the blast was made it got all smoky," miner
James Bennally told a crew from the New York-based Eleventh Hour
Films. "We would enter the mines while the smoke was still in the air
and take out the ore. They never told us about protective equipment.
We went in in our own clothes." The miners were paid seventy-five
cents an hour; they drank water that seeped through the radioactive
ore they dug. They were sometimes given masks to wear, but even at
that, said Bennally, "we still got dust through the nose. There was a
bitterness in it which we breathed and tasted. We were not aware of
the grave illness that might occur." The effects, however, were real
enough. "Across my rib-cage it is constantly hurting," said Bennally.
"The doctors do not tell me what is happening. But I know the hurt is
there."[32]
The dust Bennally and his fellow miners breathed was laced with
radon. Ventilation systems that had been installed in Czech mines as
early as the 1930s, and that were being operated at a relatively low
cost in France, were nowhere to be found in the U.S.[33] In fact the
National Council on Radiation Protection had recommended mine-worker
exposure standards as early as 1941. At that time the Atomic Energy
Commission was the sole purchaser of uranium in the U.S. It also
operated some of the mines directly. Under federal law it was
responsible for working conditions in those mines. And at the end of
the 1940s, as the nuclear arms race accelerated demand, the AEC's
Office of Raw Materials Operations recommended taking control of
exposure levels underground. "Since we were the only customer for the
ore," said Dr. Merrill Eisenbud, who was head of that office at that
time, "we should see to it that the standards that already existed
could be met." Soon after issuing that recommendation, the functions
of Eisenbud's office were inexplicably removed from his department in
New York to Washington.
Then, despite the billions of government dollars spent to develop
atomic weaponry, the AEC claimed it lacked the funding to enforce mine
safety, and turned the job over to the states and the mining
companies.[34] The companies did little. And when the states tried
to intervene, they were charged with bureaucratic meddling and
endangering the national security. One Colorado inspector commented
that in the 1950s "anybody that said a thing against uranium mining
was suspected of being a communist."[35]
In 1967 Eisenbud helped develop a machine that could identify miners
who had already suffered heavy radon exposures, thus aiding them in
getting early treatment. The machines were available for use in both
Denver and Salt Lake City. But the AEC and the Public Health Service
declined to use them, claiming that funds for a testing program were
not available. Eisenbud found that "hard to believe . . . because we
were talking about a very small amount of money."[36]
And by that time evidence was beginning to pile up that the mines
were creating an epidemic of lung cancer. Colorado and other states
began to fear a landslide of compensation claims that could cost
taxpayers and industry millions. Their fears were substantiated by a
PHS study that had begun in 1950, when the service began collecting
data on uranium miners and how they were dying. In 1960 the PHS
handed the figures to Joseph Wagoner, a recent doctoral graduate of
the Harvard School of Public Health. Wagoner told us in an extensive
Washington interview that by 1964 "we showed twelve lung cancers in
this group where just 2.8 were expected. We then updated the analysis
one more year, and showed twenty-two lung cancers where there should
have been only 5.7. When we went through 1965 we found thirty-seven
lung cancers where there should have been just seven. And through
1978, with that same group, we now show 205 lung cancers where there
should have been only forty. In other words there has been a
consistent fivefold increase in lung cancer among this group right
down the line."[37]
Still, however, the AEC refused to take responsibility for the
enforcement of mine-safety regulations. Backed by the pronuclear
Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE), which had effectively blocked
any congressional attempts to regulate the mining industry, the AEC
sailed along with little regard for the health of its miners--until
1967. Then, at a stormy JCAE hearing session, Secretary of Labor
Willard Wirtz charged that "the best available evidence is that over
two-thirds of the approximately 2,500 underground miners are working
under conditions which at least triple their prospects for dying from
lung cancer if they continue this work and these conditions remain
unchanged." Year after year of "debate and discussion had produced
nothing."[38]
The JCAE continued to insist that more study was needed. But one of
its members complained that people were now "saying that the Joint
Committee was for love, motherhood, apple pie and lung cancer."[39]
During the Nixon administration it tried to recapture lost ground by
staging more hearings, hoping to restore its public image and
forestall enactment of new regulations. This time the JCAE focused on
the possibility that cigarette smoking rather than radon was at fault.
But the PHS statistics indicated otherwise. Robert Finch, Nixon's
secretary of health, education, and welfare found the thesis "not
persuasive." Undersecretary of Labor James Hodgson noted that
"European pitchblende miners were dying of lung cancer before the
introduction of tobacco to Europe."[40]
By 1971, despite continued resistance by the JCAE, federal standards
for radon gas levels in uranium mines were created. But for many they
were too little, too late. In 1979 Merrill Eisenbud, long a nuclear
supporter, told a Senate hearing that the plague of lung cancer among
American uranium miners was "totally avoidable." There was, he said,
"a total failure of initiative with respect to the radon exposure
problem, and I believe the fact that the Atomic Energy Commission did
not take the steps it took everywhere else in this program to
safeguard the employees, is uniquely responsible for the death of many
men who developed lung cancer as a result of the failure of the mine
operators, who must also bear the blame, because they too had the
information, and the Government should not have had to club them into
ventilating their mines."[41]
Dr. Joseph Wagoner, however, felt even the new standards were far
from adequate. And enforcing them was yet another story. Mine owners
were deliberately deceiving the government about the levels of
exposure, and they were getting away with it. The radon levels were
being measured by setting collection bags on ventilation shafts. The
air in the bags would then be tested for radon. "But," Wagoner told
us, "the government had only a single inspector [per mine]. So all
the companies had to do was find out when the inspector was coming and
have somebody run in front of the guy and get to the bags and reduce
the concentration."
Wagoner also told us that the companies would time their blasting
schedules to circumvent the measurements. The government would often
monitor mine air in the morning and evening. So the companies "were
sending the workers out of the mines at lunch break, shutting off the
ventilation and blasting inside the mine to loosen the ore. When the
workers came back at one o'clock in the afternoon, they were getting
walloped with seventeen working levels," which was seventeen times the
legal standard. The miners left work having been hit with extreme
doses, which were never recorded in company files. It was "false
bookkeeping, pure and simple."
In 1980 Wagoner quit the Public Health Service after twenty years.
He told us that fall that uranium mining as practiced in the U.S.
remained the moral equivalent of "genocide." His last official act,
he said, "was to recommend that the current standards in the mines are
so totally inadequate that they are causing a doubling of lung cancer
among miners. Fully 40 percent of the mines are working in violation
of those standards, which are inadequate anyway."[42]
Conditions in the uranium mills--where the raw ore is crushed and
treated to extract the uranium--may not be any better. In the late
1970s two mill workers joined a major suit by sixty-five miners,
charging working conditions had destroyed their health. The men
reported regularly eating lunch in areas thick with uranium dust.
Some were given cloth respirators, but they became caked with dust and
were so rarely cleaned by the company that many workers simply stopped
wearing them. Dust was so pervasive that a cleanup operation at one
abandoned mill recovered $100,000 worth of uranium dust between two
layers of roofing.[43] In another case the Colorado Bureau of
Investigation confirmed that a mill owner--the Commonwealth Edison
Company of Chicago--had regularly falsified exposure levels to avoid
cleaning up their operations or paying compensation to workers.[44]
Neither the miners nor the mill workers were generally informed of
the special dangers of radiation. Again that policy had tragic costs.
In 1979 a Utah miner named George Val Snow told hearings on low-level
radiation chaired by Senator Edward Kennedy that of the forty-two
miners with whom he had worked, twenty-two were already dead of
various causes. He had worked in the Marysvale mine from 1950 to
1960; his father and brother, both victims of lung cancer, were among
the dead. Snow told of a game the workers would play to see whose
breath was most radioactive. The company, Snow said, "had a Geiger
counter out to measure the ore to see whether it was ore or waste. As
we would come out at night we would blow on it to see who could put it
furthest up on the scale. Sometimes we could put it clear off scale."
But despite four centuries of experience with death in the mines,
and decades of knowledge that radon gas caused lung cancer, no one had
told George Snow or his coworkers there was ever a danger. Said Snow:
"We were not concerned that there was anything wrong."[45]
------
30. Joseph Wagoner, interview, October 1981. See also, Wagoner, "Uranium
Mining and Milling: The Human Costs," remarks at the University of New
Mexico Medical School, Albuquerque, N.M., March 10, 1980; and Wagoner,
"Uranium: The United States Experience" (Washington: Environmental
Defense Fund, 1525 18th St. NW, 20036); and Glen Peterson, "Lung
Cancer Rate Among Uranium Miners Five Times Higher than National
Average," {National Health Federation Bulletin}, March 1980.
31. Radon 222 is a gas found in uranium-containing ores. It has a
half-life of 3.9 days. As radon 222 decays, a series of radioactive
elements called radon daughters are formed. Radon daughters, including
polonium, lead, and bismuth, emit alpha radiation, which can become
attached to dust or water particles in the mines and then inhaled by
miners. Once inhaled, the alpha radiation is delivered through the
respiratory system where the particles are deposited.
Lung diseases among uranium miners have been documented since the
1500s. Cancer was first identified in 1879. Since then, studies of
German, Czech, Yugoslav, and U.S. miners have demonstrated that
exposure to radon daughters is associated with increased risk of lung
cancer for workers in underground mines generally and uranium mines
specifically.
Studies of miners in the United States began in the early 1960s,
nearly twenty years after large-scale uranium mining began for the
nuclear weapons program. A review of environmental records shows that
many miners were exposed to radon levels greater than one working level
(WL) (1.3 X 10^5 MeV of alpha radiation from radon daughters per liter
of air). In 1955 health officials and scientists recommended that
radon levels in mines be no greater than 1 WL. As late as 1968 nearly
30 percent of underground uranium mines still had radon daughter
exposures to higher than 1 WL. Proceedings are currently under way to
reduce mining exposures to 0.7 working level month (WLM) from the
current 4 WLM (a working level month is 173 hours per month exposure to
an air level of 1 WL).
During the 1960s researchers found the U.S. uranium miners suffering
from shortness of breath, persistent cough, pneumoconiosis, wheezing,
and chest pain. Pulmonary emphysema, fibrosis, and chronic bronchitis
were also linked with chronic exposures to airborne radiation in the
mines. In 1976 an epidemic of nonmalignant respiratory diseases among
U.S. miners was confirmed when 80 such deaths were observed when 24.9
deaths were expected.
Excess lung-cancer mortality among U.S. uranium miners with three or
more years of underground experience was reported in 1962. One year
later 47 cancer deaths (contrasted to 16.1 expected cancer deaths) were
reported among miners who received chronic radon daughter exposure in
the 1 to 2 WL range. In 1964 a tenfold excess of respiratory cancer
surfaced among white miners with five or more years of underground
exposures. A 1950-1978 follow-up of white underground U.S. uranium
miners found 205 lung-cancer deaths when 40 were expected. Follow-up
done on 780 American Indian miners found 11 deaths when 2.6 lung-cancer
deaths were expected.
Early epidemiologic studies found that the histologic cell type of
lung cancer among U.S. miners was the small cell undifferentiated type,
very different from the type found in the general population. Later
studies, however, have found three types--epidermoid, small cell
undifferentiated, and adenomatus--prevalent among uranium miners. The
early studies also indicated that uranium miners who smoked were more
apt to develop cancers than nonsmokers. Recent studies of lung cancer
among nonsmoking Indian miners and follow-ups of the early
epidemiologic studies, however, show that smoking serves only to
shorten the lung-cancer latency period--the same types of cancer were
found among both smokers and nonsmokers, the nonsmokers' cancers
appearing approximately two to five years after those in smokers were
diagnosed.
References: V. E. Archer, J. D. Gillam, and J. Wagoner,
"Respiratory Disease Mortality Among Uranium Miners," in {Annals, New
York Academy of Sciences} 271 (1976): 280; D. A. Holaday, et al.,
{Control of Radon and Daughters in Uranium Mines and Calculations on
Biological Effects}, PHS Publication No. 494 (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1957); F. E. Lundin, et al., {Radon
Daughter Exposure and Respiratory Cancer Quantitative and Temporal
Aspects}, NIOSH and NIEHS Joint Monograph No. 1 (Springfield, Va.;
NTIS, 1976); V. E. Archer, et al., "Hazards to Health in Uranium
Mining and Milling," {Journal of Occupational Medicine} 4 (1962):
55-60; J. K. Wagoner, et al., "Cancer Mortality Patterns Among U.S.
Uranium Miners and Millers, 1950-1962," {Journal of the National
Cancer Institute} 32 (1964): 787-801; J. K. Wagoner, et al.,
"Mortality of American Indian Uranium Miners," {Proceedings}, XI
International Cancer Congress, 1975.
32. {In Our Own Back Yard}, transcripts, Eleventh Hour Films, 29 Jones St.,
New York City 10014.
33. H. Peter Metzger, {The Atomic Establishment} (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1972), p. 120.
34. U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources,
Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, and the Committee on
the Judiciary, {Health Impact of Low-Level Radiation, 1979}, 96th
Cong., 1st sess., June 19, 1979, pp. 19-23 (hereafter cited as {1979
Radiation Hearings}.)
35. Metzger, {Atomic Establishment}.
36. {1979 Radiation Hearings}, pp. 19-23.
37. Wagoner interview.
38. Metzger, {Atomic Establishment}, pp. 131-133.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid., p. 140.
41. {1979 Radiation Hearings}, pp. 19-23.
42. Wagoner interview.
43. {High Country News}, September 5, 1980.
44. Peggy Strain, "Edison Unit's Uranium Mill Health Data Falsified:
Study," {Chicago Sun-Times}, September 28, 1980.
45. {1979 Radiation Hearings}, pp. 48-50.
------
The Radium-Dial Painters
Other workers also have been uninformed about their exposures to
radiation--and have paid a fearsome price. Among the first were
several thousand Americans--most of them women--hired to paint
radioactive radium onto watch faces, making them glow in the dark.[46]
Radium is a by-product of uranium ore, found in nature. In the
1920s company managers told many employees that ingesting radium would
add to their vitality, curl their hair, improve their complexions, and
make them sexually attractive. The dial painters thus eagerly licked
their paintbrushes to give them the fine point they needed to paint
the watch dials. Many also applied the radioactive substance to their
rings, buttons, and belts. One man even painted his teeth to make
them glow--an act that anticipated the current widespread use of
uranium in the manufacture of false teeth and ceramic tooth caps.
By 1924 news that four employees of the U.S. Radium Corporation had
died of necrosis of the jaw--a rare degenerative disease--reached the
Board of Health of Orange County, New Jersey. Eight other women were
seriously ill, and local dentists were reporting still more cases.
But when Katherine Wiley of the National Consumers League approached
the company, she was told the problem was due to poor dental
hygiene.[47]
The company, however, had already secretly hired Dr. Cecil Drinker
of Harvard to study the plant. Drinker found radium paint spattered
throughout the work area, on employees' clothes and even on their
underwear. He also learned U.S. Radium had ordered its workers to
stop licking their paintbrushes, a clear indication they knew
something was wrong. Drinker's report clearly implicated radium as
the source of the necrosis epidemic.[48]
The company responded with hostility. Katherine Wiley was given an
edited version of Drinker's report, which said "every girl is in
perfect condition." Drinker protested and was threatened with a
lawsuit. When he later published his full paper anyway, U.S. Radium
brought in Dr. F. B. Flinn of Columbia University. Flinn gave the
company a clean bill of health. But in 1925 Dr. Harrison Martland, a
local health official, confirmed five deaths from radium poisoning and
estimated the average radium-dial painter might well ingest, over a
five-year period, one thousand micrograms of radium--ten thousand
times the 1981 standard.[49] In light of Martland's findings, Flinn
repudiated his own study.
Ensuing studies continued to confirm the worst, with indications of
increased bone cancer, cancer of the colon, diseases of the blood-
forming organs, respiratory problems, and necrosis of the jaw. One
study showed that the exhumed bones of former dial painters exhibited
such high levels of radium that they photographed themselves on
unexposed film.[50] And as the victims themselves began complaining
of their diseases and filing lawsuits, media coverage led to increased
public pressure on the companies to tighten up their procedures. That
slowed, but did not stop, the epidemic. Because it emits alpha
radiation, radium can be lethal when ingested in sufficient amounts.
But radium also emits penetrating gamma rays, and working with it
outside the body can lead to exposures that cause a wide range of
diseases, including breast cancer and multiple myeloma, which
continued to surface even in the "modernized" dial plants.[51]
Finally, faced with a raft of lawsuits, one operation--the
Illinois-based Radium Dial Company--went out of business in 1934.
Soon thereafter, however, a "new" company called Luminous Processes
emerged as the owner of Radium Dial's plant and paymaster of its
employees. Joseph Kelley, Sr., former president of Radium Dial, now
became president of Luminous Processes, whose practices were
remarkably similar to those of Radium Dial. Investigative reporter
Anna Mayo reported in {The Village Voice} that Luminous had grown, by
the 1970s, into a multinational concern with offices in Manhattan,
Switzerland, and Hong Kong.[52]
But despite its expansion Luminous apparently maintained many of its
traditional modes of production. In 1976 the NRC fined Luminous for
sloppy practices at its Illinois factory. In 1978 the commission
ordered the plant shut. Luminous responded by hastily ordering its
equipment trucked to Georgia, where it had a plant free of NRC
jurisdiction. The commission caught the trucks and confiscated the
equipment. The Georgia plant was closed soon thereafter; local
officials were still reporting high radiation levels on site in
1980.[53] Mayo later visited the Illinois site and reported that
seven of the ten former Luminous workers she interviewed there were
suffering from breast cancer and tumors on their feet.[54]
In the mid-1970s luminous watch-dial production shifted from radium
to the use of thin glass slivers filled with tritium, a radioactive
isotope of hydrogen capable of glowing without an electric source.
Though the process was generally believed to be safer than painting
with radium, the American Atomics Corporation of Tucson in 1979
contaminated an entire neighborhood with tritium, including the
kitchen of the Tucson public school system. Meanwhile radioactive
materials continue to be used in a wide range of light sources
including some coffeepots, hand-held calculators, and nightlights.
------
46. Scott/NlOSH Report, p. 8.
47. Roger J Cloutier, "Florence Kelley and the Radium Dial Painters,"
{Health Physics Journal} 39, No. 5 (November 1980): 711-717.
48. Ibid.
49. Harrison S. Martland, "Occupational Poisoning in the Manufacture of
Luminous Watch Dials," {Journal of the American Medical Association}
92 (1929): 466-477.
50. Cloutier, "Florence Kelley and the Radium Dial Painters."
51. Baverstock, et al., "Risks of Radiation at Low Dose Rates," {Lancet}
21 (February 21, 1981): 430-433; Jack Cuzick, "Radiation-Induced
Myelomatosis," {New England Journal of Medicine} 304, No. 4 (January
22, 1981).
52. Anna Mayo, "We Are All Guinea Pigs," {Village Voice}, December 25,
1978, p. 18.
53. Environmental Radiation Surveillance Report, Georgia Department of
Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Division, summer 1979
to summer 1980, pp. 177-186.
54. Mayo, "We Are All Guinea Pigs."
------
The Manhattan Project
Although several radium-dial workers won compensation claims in
court, publicity of the primitive conditions in which they worked did
little to better the lot of workers elsewhere in the nascent nuclear
industry. While the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the most
obvious victims of the atomic attack, Americans also died from those
bombs--many from the work of producing them.
Part of the problem was a cavalier attitude among scientists toward
the potential dangers of radiation. In the 1930s, for example, Dr. J.
Robert Oppenheimer would occasionally drink a solution of highly
radioactive sodium 24 and then, to the amazement of onlooking graduate
students, send a Geiger counter off-scale with his hand.[55] In 1944
Dr. John Gofman, then a young graduate student working on the
Manhattan Project, which produced the first atomic bomb, was heavily
dosed when he was ordered to perform by hand a highly dangerous task
involving plutonium that should have been handled only by machine.
Gofman told us that in another instance the chief concern of safety
personnel at the Berkeley Laboratory in California was the stacking of
cardboard boxes that "might fall and hit someone." The room in which
they were stacked, however, was highly radioactive, and the people in
it were being severely exposed--with no particular concern on the part
of the safety teams.[56] In another case Dr. Karl Z. Morgan, an
original member of the Manhattan Project Health Physics Group, could
not convince plant engineers to separate the workers' drinking-water
system from the industrial-process system. Thus a leak or a mistaken
turn of a valve could result in plant workers drinking radioactive
water.[57]
Another Los Alamos scientist named Harry Daglian caused his own
death in a process he called "tickling the dragon's tail." By
arranging a wall of tungsten-carbide bricks around a uranium or
plutonium source, Daglian could determine how much material was needed
to cause a chain reaction. But on August 21, 1945, Daglian
accidentally caused a plutonium source to go critical. The air in his
laboratory turned blue and radiation seared Daglian's flesh. He died
a horrifying death. Less than a year later Daglian's boss, Louis
Slotin, suffered a similar fate.[58]
The haphazard practices inevitably carried over to the workers at
Los Alamos, many of them enlisted GIs. One, a GI named Ted Lombard,
remembered that he and his coworkers often handled dangerous materials
with their bare hands, and without proper monitoring. "Contamination
was rampant," he said. In certain shops "the fumes and dust were
constantly in the air . . . The dust was on the floor. Uranium chips
would be in your shoes. You went to eat with the same clothes and sat
on the beds."[59]
By the summer of 1945 Lombard was complaining of stomach problems.
In December the Army gave him a medical discharge. His health
deteriorated, with the tissue in his lungs becoming fibrous and his
skin developing sores that would not heal. The worst of it, however,
came with his children and grandchildren. "I have a daughter, 31
[who] appeared to be healthy until we looked back," Lombard said to
the 1980 Citizens' Hearings for Radiation Victims in Washington.
"It's a slow, insidious thing. Now she's in a wheel chair with
neuromuscular, undiagnosed, multi-type seizures, lack of antibodies,
lack of digestive enzymes. . . . My youngest son is a deaf mute,
subject to multiple seizures, blood conditions and other undiagnosed
problems. He's mentally retarded too. Another son has migraine
headaches . . . is aphasic and has blood problems. The two
grandchildren are starting to show signs of digestive problems and
blood conditions."[60] Lombard has filed a claim with the Veterans
Administration. The VA has acknowledged his exposures at Los Alamos
but refuses to provide his medical records.
Evidence has also surfaced that operation of Los Alamos may have
harmed the entire community. A 1979 study by the New Mexico tumor
registry showed that from 1969 to 1974, breast cancer in white females
in Los Alamos County was more than twice the national average.
Cancers of the stomach, pancreas, bladder, and rectum were three times
the state average. Cancer of the colon was more than double the state
average.[61]
The only long-term health survey of Manhattan Project workers at Los
Alamos was conducted by Dr. George Voeltz, director of Health Effects
Research at Los Alamos. Voeltz concluded, after contacting twenty-six
employees, that "no medical findings were reported which could be
attributed definitely to plutonium."[62] But his findings have been
disputed. Dr. Edward Martell, a radiation researcher for the National
Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, examined Voeltz's data and
concluded that "with equal justification one may state that most of
the serious medical findings in this group can be attributed to
plutonium."[63]
In 1974 Voeltz began a larger study of 224 workers exposed to
plutonium at Los Alamos. Ted Lombard was not in either of Voeltz's
samples. But in a form letter to prospective participants for his
second study, Voeltz revealed the results he anticipated: he asked
former workers to "please cooperate to help us prove that exposures to
low-levels of plutonium are not harmful."[64]
------
55. Rapoport, {The Great American Bomb Machine}, p. 122.
56. Gofman interview.
57. Karl Z. Morgan, interview, October 1980.
58. Karl F. Hubner and Shirley Fry, "The Medical Basis for Radiation
Accident Preparedness," {Proceedings of the REAC/TS International
Conference}, Oak Ridge, Tenn., October 1979, p. 17.
59. "Statement of Ted Lombard," {Citizens' Hearings}.
60. Ibid.
61. "Cancer Rate Elevated in Los Alamos County," {Albuquerque Journal},
October 12, 1979.
62. Ibid.
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid.
------
The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard
No such bias was apparent in the work of Dr. Thomas Najarian, a
blood specialist at Boston Veterans' Hospital. In the fall of 1977
Najarian was examining a former nuclear welder named Adolph Pohopek,
who was suffering from leukemia. Pohopek had worked at the Portsmouth
Naval Shipyard in New Hampshire, and asked Najarian if radiation
exposure at the shipyard might have had anything to do with his
leukemia.
Portsmouth, which is about sixty miles north of Boston along the
Atlantic coast, has been building warships since 1800. It constructed
the first American military submarine in 1917. Between 1954 and 1977
a total of sixty-three atomic subs were either built, overhauled, or
repaired at Portsmouth. The General Dynamics Corporation operates the
yard on government contract, and roughly a third of the 24,525 workers
listed as having worked at PNS have been exposed to radiation, among
them Adolph Pohopek.[65]
Pohopek told Najarian that numerous Portsmouth workers seemed to die
unusually young, and that working conditions in the yards were not all
they should be. Pohopek then gave Najarian the names of fifty people
who had recently worked at Portsmouth. Najarian found that ten of
them were already dead, and he asked the VA for funds to do some
follow-up research. The VA turned him down, saying exposures at
Portsmouth were too low to have caused any of the deaths.[66]
But Najarian persisted. Using his own money for postage and paper,
he mailed questionnaires to about forty past and present Portsmouth
workers. Within a week the head of the VA's research division in
Washington called Najarian, demanding to know who was funding his
research and asking for all his correspondence with naval personnel.
When Najarian asked that the request be put in writing, he never heard
from the VA official again.[67]
When the questionnaires themselves began coming in, they revealed
what Najarian considered an alarmingly high rate of leukemia deaths.
In mid-November of 1977 Najarian asked {The Boston Globe} for help.
Although the Navy had refused to give Najarian any of its records, he
and an investigative team from the {Globe} were able to gather some
seventeen hundred death certificates relating to Portsmouth workers.
The Navy also refused to release any worker exposure records. But
with the help of statistician Dr. Theodore Colton, Najarian was able
to isolate those workers whose families could confirm that they were
exposed to radiation at Portsmouth. In June of 1978 Najarian and
Colton published a paper in {Lancet}, indicating a leukemia rate among
exposed Portsmouth workers that was four times normal.[68]
The study was soon attacked by Admiral Hyman Rickover, chief of the
Navy's nuclear programs and pioneer of the atomic submarine. A hard-
driving perfectionist who was former President Jimmy Carter's mentor
while Carter was in the Navy, Rickover has an almost legendary
reputation for turning out the best-trained personnel in the nuclear
field. In 1958, under his watchful eye, an enlarged version of the
nuclear sub reactor opened at Shippingport, Pennsylvania, as the
world's first commercial demonstration reactor to produce electricity.
Rickover also had a great stake in the Portsmouth operation, and
vigorously defended the record of the nuclear Navy. In 1978 he told a
congressional hearing that "we have had no accidents which caused
people to be injured or which had a radiobiological effect on the
environment." But he scrupulously added that "I do not include the
long-term effects of low-level radiation."[69]
And that was precisely what was at issue. Rickover, after
congressional pressure, soon agreed to have the Center for Disease
Control (CDC) evaluate Najarian's findings. The CDC turned the study
over to its subagency, the National Institute for Occupational Safety
and Health, which asked--among others--Dr. Thomas Mancuso to serve on
its independent scientific "watchdog" panel which had been mandated by
Congress.
Controversy soon clouded the study. Mancuso refused an appointment
to the watchdog panel after NIOSH refused to guarantee him access for
an on-site evaluation of the data sources. In December 1980 several
NIOSH researchers concluded that "excesses of deaths due to cancer and
due specifically to cancers of the blood and blood forming organs were
not evident" at Portsmouth.[70] But on January 5, 1981, the {Globe}
reported that five of six advisory committee members they polled felt
that the NIOSH data had in fact revealed "a trend toward higher
leukemia rates among workers who received higher doses of radiation."
One panel member, Dr. George Hutchinson, who is generally known to be
pronuclear, conceded to the {Globe} that "there is a trend of leukemia
with dose"--that the evidence indicated the more radiation the
Portsmouth workers received, the more likely they were to contract
leukemia.[71]
In fact NIOSH submitted its final report for publication without
giving its full congressionally mandated advisory committee a chance
to discuss its conclusions. Committee member Irwin Bross threatened
to sue NIOSH to get them to send him the data, and then charged that
the numbers "flatly contradict statements made by CDC/NIOSH." Bross
found a large excess of lung cancer linked to radiation exposure.[72]
Though controversy still rages over the Portsmouth studies, there
seems little doubt in the minds of the people working there that
something might be seriously wrong. In January of 1979 Dr. John Cobb
of the University of Colorado Medical School, a member of the NIOSH
advisory panel, visited Portsmouth to evaluate the situation for NIOSH
director Dr. Tony Robbins. When he got there, Cobb found
"antagonistic" and "explosive" differences between the unions and the
Navy over health and safety issues, and that the unions felt "the Navy
would lie, cheat and do anything to cover up their deficiencies in
management."[73]
Cobb also discovered "that there could be an incentive for workers
to keep their recorded radiation exposure lower than actual exposure,"
and that the Navy would often issue "waivers" to workers to keep them
working in radioactive areas even after they had exceeded exposure
limits. Cobb said he "was told that workers were led to believe that
radiation exposure would not harm them."[74] Because radiation work
brought higher pay, employees were reluctant to wear film badges for
fear of being put in lower-paying jobs if they "burned out."
------
65. "Epidemiologic Study of Civilian Employees at the Portsmouth Naval
Shipyard, Kittery, Maine," National Institute of Occupational Safety
and Health, released December 3, 1980 (hereafter cited as "NIOSH/PNS
Report").
66. "Statement of Thomas Najarian," {Effect of Radiation on Human Health},
February 28, 1978, p. 1236.
67. Ibid.
68. Thomas Najarian and Theodore Colton, "Leukemia among Shipyard Workers,"
{Lancet}, June 1978.
69. "Statement of Hyman Rickover, Adm. H.G., Deputy Commander, Nuclear
Power Naval Sea System Command, USN, Department of Defense," {Effect
of Radiation on Human Health}, p. 1272.
70. "NIOSH/PNS Report," p. 31.
71. N. Breslius, "Questions Raised in Shipyard Cancer Study," {Boston
Globe}, January 5, 1981, p. 22.
72. Irwin D. J. Bross, director of biostatistics, Roswell Park Memorial
Cancer Research Institute, memorandum to "Competent and Responsible
Members of the Oversight Committee," January 26, 1981.
73. John C. Cobb, {Report of Visit and Recommendations Regarding Studies
of Cancer Incidence at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard}, NIOSH Report,
January 30-31, 1979, p. 5 (hereafter cited as {Cobb/NIOSH Report}).
74. Ibid., p. 6.
------
Enrichment and Reactors
Labor anger and questions of radioactive workers' safety are also
epidemic in America's uranium enrichment industry. Enrichment--the
process of turning milled uranium ore into high-grade reactor fuel and
weapons material--involves huge quantities of energy, thousands of
workers, and billions of dollars in taxpayer investments and
subsidies.
These are three major enrichment plants in the U.S.--at Paducah,
Kentucky; Piketon, Ohio; and Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
At Paducah, which is operated under government contract by the Union
Carbide Corporation, a worker named Joe Harding has charged that
company management put a tight lid on all discussions of plant safety.
Words like {radiation} were banned from conversation, he said.
"Before you worked there, the FBI ran a security check. And after you
were hired, the FBI would keep an eye on you."[75]
Through his eighteen and a half years at Paducah, Harding, a
maintenance worker, regularly breathed radioactive gases "so thick you
could see the haze in the air when you looked at the ceiling light,
and you could taste it coated on your teeth and in your throat and
lungs. After a couple hours of work the uranium dust on the floor was
so thick you could see your tracks when walking around." Leaks were
rampant, Harding added, and protective clothing was minimal. "There
was no particular lunch room or lunch hour. You just sat down
somewhere, blew away the uranium dust and had your lunch."[76]
According to Dr. Karl Z. Morgan, working in air laden with uranium
hexafluoride gas, prevalent at the enrichment plants, can contaminate
the lungs and entire gastrointestinal tract and can give the body
heavy doses of alpha, beta, and gamma radiation. Serious beta
radiation to the skin can also result. There is a double risk because
the hexafluoride, which is combined with the uranium, is itself highly
corrosive and toxic.[77]
By late February of 1980 Harding--at age fifty-nine--had lost 95
percent of his stomach and suffered from chronic lung problems and
skin sores that would not heal. There was a large tumor wrapped
around his spine in the abdominal cavity, and fingernail-like growths
protruded from his joints. Despite confinement to a wheelchair,
Harding spent the last years of his life speaking out against
conditions at Paducah. When he had started work at age thirty-one, he
said, he was a strong, vigorous man who was "never sick" and "could
eat anything." His plant supervisors had told him "you will not get
any more radiation in this work than you get from wearing a luminous
dial wristwatch."[78]
Three decades later, an eighty-pound cripple racked with constant
pain, Harding extracted a promise from the DOE that his case would be
fully evaluated. But after he died, his widow, Clara, was told her
husband had rarely been monitored for radiation "because of the low
potential for exposure" among workers in his field.[79]
The DOE records did reveal that at one point in Harding's career he
had produced a urine sample which showed ten times the allowable limit
of radiation. But a sample taken the next day was said to have shown
a dramatic drop in radiation levels. According to Dr. Morgan it takes
several days for uranium to pass through the body, and thus "either
the second sample taken of Mr. Harding's urine was mistakenly
analyzed, or it was falsified."[80]
Ironically, though no reliable studies have been done of worker
health at Paducah, the Kentucky Health Department has found that the
counties around the plant have the highest cancer rate in the state,
well above the national average. Breast cancer among women and
prostate cancer in men were the most prominent. Communities near the
plant showed excesses of colon and lung cancer among both sexes--
diseases commonly linked to radiation.[81]
Unfortunately conditions at Paducah do not appear to be unique.
According to Dennis Bloomfield, president of the Oil, Chemical and
Atomic Workers local union at Piketon, one incident there spread so
much contaminated dust that workers were forced to destroy their shoes
for fear of carrying radiation home to their families. "The lunch
table we were eating on was so contaminated it had to be destroyed,"
he said.[82]
In 1979 Bloomfield's union waged a long and bitter strike for
improved health and safety conditions at the plant. Among other
things it demanded that monitoring of worker conditions be taken out
of the hands of the DOE and given to the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration (OSHA), which the union hoped would offer better
protection for its workers. According to a 1980 GAO report the DOE
had inspected all three enrichment plants only a total of three times
in the five years from 1975 to 1980. Neither the NRC nor OSHA were
allowed to monitor radiation exposures inside any of the enrichment
plants, and the GAO noted that by and large company management was
very slow to respond to worker complaints of unsafe conditions.[83]
Finally, after the workers' costly strike, Goodyear--which operates
Piketon under federal contract--gave in to some of the union's
demands. The DOE, however, still dominates access and monitoring of
working conditions at all enrichment facilities.
Because of such lack of controls, many American enrichment workers
live in fear of what their jobs might be doing to them. Two such
Piketon employees--Mike and Kathy Schuller--were interviewed by
British television in 1980. They were both contaminated after having
been told by Goodyear that their particular jobs were safe from
radioactivity. When Kathy complained, she was told "either you do it,
or you get sent home."[84] Pregnant at the time, she told the TV
crew, "I kind of worry about what is going to happen to my unborn
child." Kathy said she "will feel better after it gets here, and that
it's got everything--all ten fingers and ten toes."[85] On December
18, 1980, the Schullers' son was born with only one hand.
Fears like those of the Schullers are also starting to surface in
the nuclear power field. Since 1957, when operations began at the
first commercial demonstration power reactor at Shippingport,
Pennsylvania, a burgeoning industry has evolved employing more than
eighty thousand people. In 1972 the EPA predicted annual exposure
levels per worker would not exceed .225 rem by the year 2000. Within
six years the reported average exposures at atomic reactors had more
than tripled that EPA prediction.[86] Ironically efforts to reduce
exposures to the general public may be partly at fault. By trapping
radiation on site that would normally be vented, levels within the
plant go up--at peril to the employees.
And during crisis situations at a plant conditions become even
worse. Utilities often hire "jumpers," short-term workers who handle
high-exposure jobs, where legal limits of exposure are quickly
consumed. The practice is sometimes called "body banking," whereby
unskilled and often uninformed laborers are sent into "hot" areas at
high hourly wages for brief but dangerous stints. In 1971 the Nuclear
Fuel Services reprocessing facility at West Valley, near Buffalo, New
York, used nearly one thousand jumpers to handle an emergency.
According to Dr. Marvin Resnikoff, a professor of physics at the
nearby Rachel Carson College, the jumpers were often "high school
graduates with minimal job experience, unable to find employment in
the depressed job market in Buffalo. They were given extremely
limited information regarding radiation hazards."[87] Though federal
standards dictated that they not work with radiation for at least
three months after their initial employment, many of the jumpers
returned to NFS within days bearing false identification, and were
sent back in for more doses. Former President Carter served as a
jumper after a nuclear accident at Chalk River, Canada, in 1952.
Carter got a year's dose in less than ninety seconds.[88]
One of the problems that makes "body banking" and all other nuclear
work even more dangerous is that few if any of the workers involved
may be getting reliable exposure records from their employers. Much
of the monitoring relies on the use of dosimeter "badges," which are
usually worn while a person works in a hot area. The badges are
generally built around a special film designed to record gamma
radiation.
But other lethal forms of radiation escape the badges. And even for
gamma radiation they may not be reliable. A 1980 study by the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission found that 80 percent of all radiation
monitoring devices tested failed to come within 50 percent accuracy.
Conducted by the University of Michigan, the study covered fifty-nine
processing firms and involved a sample of about 90 percent of the
radiation-dosimetry industry. By mixing in "control" badges with
those coming from work sites, the Michigan researchers found that a
large part of the dosimetry work being done at American nuclear sites
was unreliable at best. When test badges were exposed to levels of
radiation corresponding to a major nuclear accident, the extreme doses
went undetected.[89] The response by the Health Physics Society,
which sets monitoring standards, however, was not to improve the
technology--but rather to relax the dosimetry standards, making it
easier for the industry to pass future tests.[90]
Meanwhile preliminary indications from reactor work are not
encouraging. According to death certificates obtained by the union
representing workers at the Shippingport and Beaver Valley I reactors
in Pennsylvania, multiple myeloma and leukemia rates among former
workers at those two plants are far above normal state rates.[91]
Indications are also strong that there may have been serious damage
incurred by workers at Three Mile Island (TMI). According to the
Kemeny Commission, which was established by President Carter to study
the accident, workers at TMI were exposed to levels that "exceeded the
limits of the licensee's measurement capability of one thousand rads
per hour." During the accident several repair parties entered these
high-radiation areas without knowledge of radiation protection
supervisors. According to an NRC report on the accident, "items of
protective clothing were not worn, resulting in several instances of
head contamination." Sample containers of highly radioactive water
were "handled directly without the use of remote tools or
shielding."[92]
------
75. Joe Harding, interview with Pierre Fruling, published in newsletter,
"Uranium Killed Joe" (available from the National Committee for
Radiation Victims, 317 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, Washington, D.C. 20003).
76. Ibid.
77. Karl Z. Morgan, letter to Robert Hagar, Esq., February 4, 1981
(hereafter cited as Morgan letter).
78. Joe Harding interview.
79. Department of Energy, letter to Clara Harding, January 1981 (available
from Robert Hagar, Mrs. Harding's attorney, 1471 N. Capitol St., NW,
Washington, D.C.).
80. Morgan letter.
81. {Sun Democrat} (Paducah, Ky.), November 2, 1977, p. 1.
82. Dennis Bloomfield, interview, {For My Working Life}, film transcript,
copyright ATV, April 28, 1981 (hereafter cited as {ATV Transcript}).
83. Sheila Hershow, "Atomic Plant Probe Confirms Charges Aired Six Years
Ago," {Federal Times}, August 25, 1980, p. 13.
84. {ATV Transcript}.
85. Ibid.
86. Scott/NlOSH Report, p. 30.
87. Marvin Resnikoff, "On the Job at NFS--Occupational Hazards in the
Reprocessing Business," Sierra Club Radioactive Waste Campaign,
Buffalo, N.Y.
88. Jimmy Carter, {Why Not the Best?} (New York: Bantam, 1976), p. 60.
89. "Performance Testing of Personnel Dosimetry Services, Report of a Two
Year Pilot Study, October 1977--December 1979," NUREG/CR 1304
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission).
90. Ibid.
91. {Deaths Among Operating Engineers Who Worked at the Shippingport Site}
1 accident (crushed chest)
9 cancer: 5 non-bone-marrow related cancers
4 bone-marrow related cancers
2 bone-marrow leukemias
2 multiple myelomas
12 heart and other diseases
______________________________________________________________________
22 deaths total among operating engineers at Shippingport (1970-79)
92. J. G. Kemeny, et al., {The President's Commission on the Accident at
Three Mile Island, the Need for Change: The Legacy of TMI},
Washington, D.C., 1979, Appendix iii, Nos. 4 and 18. (hereafter cited
as {Kemeny Report}).
------
Rocky Flats
Problems among workers in the reactor industry are just starting to
surface, but such complaints have long been common at the Rocky Flats
plutonium factory near Denver. Rocky Flats is the "Grand Central
Station" of the nuclear weapons industry. It recycles fissionable
materials from "obsolete" bombs, and it also produces plutonium
"triggers" for new ones. Its core is an elaborate system of
ventilated stainless-steel glove boxes where workers smelt, press,
machine, polish, and measure the plutonium for America's nuclear
bombs.
Rocky Flats was operated under government contract by Dow Chemical
from the time it opened in 1953 until 1975, when management was taken
over by Rockwell International. Dissatisfaction with both Dow and
Rockwell has been widespread, and numerous fires and spills have
plagued the plant. At least 325 workers are known to have been
seriously contaminated in that period. One 1958 survey of an on-site
cafeteria showed contamination in fifty of fifty-four areas above
"allowable tolerances" for plutonium.[93] In 1965--a year in which at
least forty-five workers were contaminated with plutonium--a local
union attempted to establish a management-worker safety committee.
Dow Chemical management refused to cooperate. In October of that year
a fire contaminated an entire production crew of twenty-five workers
with up to seventeen times the maximum allowable exposure.[94]
Since the plant opened, thousands of people have been employed at
Rocky Flats. But no reliable independent health survey of the work
force has ever been published. And some of the indications that have
surfaced are not encouraging and have resulted in fierce court battles
that may have a profound impact on all radiation-related work to come.
Don Gabel, for example, began work at Rocky Flats fresh out of high
school in 1969. A significant part of his day was spent operating a
furnace that treated plutonium. In one case a pipe leaked nitric acid
laced with plutonium onto his head. Despite assurances from his boss,
Gabel became concerned about the effects of working near so much
radiation. In one case the pipe that he worked near for long periods
of time was tested and "pegged the needle off the dial."[95]
In 1979, after a decade in the plant, Gabel began to suffer from
serious headaches, then seizures. Doctors found a malignant brain
tumor, which could not be removed. Gabel finally had to move his wife
and three children to the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, hoping
to be saved by experimental treatment. It failed. In the fall of
1980 Don Gabel died at the age of thirty. An ensuing autopsy revealed
significant quantities of plutonium and americium in his lungs, liver,
and bones.
Three months before his death Gabel filed a workers compensation
claim against Rockwell International. His wife is pursuing the
battle.
The case of Dan Karkenan, a college-trained professional who began
work at Rocky Flats in 1968, was never resolved. Karkenan was a
mechanical engineer who helped in the cleanup and reconstruction of
Rocky Flats after a fire on May 11, 1969, seriously contaminated the
plant and sent an uncertain amount of plutonium into the areas south
of the plant.
By the spring of 1975 Karkenan began showing symptoms of numbness in
his fingers and toes, followed by a loss of coordination and then
paralysis in his arms and legs. Doctors were unable to diagnose
Karkenan's disease, but he and his family were convinced it could be
traced to his work during the cleanup after the 1969 fire, when the
entire Rocky Flats area was heavily contaminated.[96] Just before
Karkenan died in 1976, he asked his wife Miriam to have tissue samples
examined as a part of his autopsy--as was later done with Don Gabel.
But when she authorized the autopsy, Miriam Karkenan was told by the
hospital that permission was required from Rockwell before her
husband's tissues could be analyzed for radioactivity. After three
months of wrangling with the company, she obtained permission--and was
then told by the hospital that the tissues had been discarded.
Karkenan continued to pursue her husband's records from Rockwell
International and in late 1979 was sent a "report" ostensibly
detailing her husband's exposure history. The document discussed Dan
Karkenan's "on-the-job" exposures in 1977, 1978, and 1979--three years
after he was already dead.[97]
One landmark case of immense potential impact has been won--against
Dow Chemical for its operation of Rocky Flats. It involves the family
of Leroy Krumback. Krumback worked with plutonium at Rocky Flats from
1959 through 1974, when he died at age sixty-five of colon cancer.
His widow Florence was never told how much exposure her husband was
getting, but remembered him coming home often with his hands rubbed
raw from Clorox scrubs designed to remove contamination, and with
descriptions of how his eyes, nostrils, and feet had been contaminated
as well. Florence Krumback's attempts to receive compensation for her
husband's death dragged on fruitlessly until 1979, when a young lawyer
named Bruce DeBoskey joined her case.
His involvement was well timed. By 1980 public sentiment in Denver
and surrounding communities had swung sharply against Rocky Flats.
Colorado's governor Richard Lamm had urged President Carter to move
the plant to another state, and a business group, organized in part by
a local contractor named Rex Haag, was actively working to shut Rocky
Flats down.
In February, Dr. Alice Stewart testified at Krumback's compensation
hearing. Krumback's records showed he had received 45.67 rems of
whole body exposure, which Dow Chemical claimed was a safe dose. But
Stewart calculated that the actual "effective" dose was much higher
because Krumback had received a substantial portion of it while over
the age of forty, when his sensitivity to radiation was greater. His
"effective" dose, said Stewart, was more like 222 rems, far more than
enough to cause his cancer.[98]
At another hearing in August of 1980 Dr. Karl Z. Morgan found it
"unthinkable" that records showed Krumback had on ten separate
occasions been allowed to exceed his quarterly exposure limit. "I am
appalled at what happened," said Morgan, who had worked for twenty-
eight years as a top health officer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
He commented that he would have shut down Oak Ridge if similar
exposures had been shown there. He estimated the effective plutonium
dose to Krumback's colon in the thousands of rems, and agreed with Dr.
Stewart that the plutonium exposure was more than sufficient to cause
Krumback's cancer.[99]
With the unexpected addition of testimony from Drs. Stewart and
Morgan, Dow Chemical saw what had seemed like a routine suit--destined
for denial--turn into a watershed battle. On June 3, 1981, the tide
turned toward the nuclear workers. Colorado granted Florence Krumback
a twenty-one-thousand-dollar settlement, which seemed bound to open
the door for a whole backlog of suits like those of the Gabel family.
The sum was a small fraction of the medical expenses from Leroy
Krumback's illness. But Florence Krumback hoped her victory would
help force the industry to make the changes in the radioactive
workplace. "If it saves one life," she said, "then it will be worth
it."[100]
------
93. Rapoport, {Great American Bomb Machine}, p. 24.
94. Ibid., p. 25.
95. Don Gabel, interview with film makers of {Dark Circle: A Documentary
on Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Power}, produced by the Independent
Documentary Group (395 Elizabeth St., San Francisco, CA 94114; 1981)
(hereafter cited as {Dark Circle}).
96. {Citizens' Hearings}.
97. Ibid.
98. Alice M. Stewart, testimony before the Colorado Workers Compensation
Department hearings, {Krumback v. Dow Chemical}, February 1980.
99. Karl Z. Morgan, testimony before the Colorado Workers Compensation
Department hearings, {Krumback v. Dow Chemical}, August 1980.
100. Pamela Avery, "Rocky Flats Cancer Death Blamed on Radiation," {Rocky
Mountain News}, June 4, 1981, p. 4.
While the commercial reactor industry is undergoing a serious
decline, well hidden from the public eye is the proposed massive
expansion of nuclear weapons production. Insofar as military strategic
policy serves as the vehicle of the nuclear arms race, the plants that
make fissionable material, manufacture bomb components, and assemble
them make up the engine. Because several of these weapons plants have
reached the end of their productive cycle of thirty years, the federal
government is already moving to commit the nation to another thirty
years of large-scale nuclear weapons material production.
------
______________________________________________________________________________
P A R T III
_____________
The Industry's Underside
* * * * * * *
[part 9 of 18]
8
Bomb Production at Rocky Flats: Death Downwind
Kristen Haag was born in 1967. Rex, her father, was a well-to-do
contractor in suburban Denver who did all he could to show his blue-
eyed daughter the world. "She had a happy childhood," he said. "She
rode horses, she rode motorcycles. She went to Hawaii, she went to
the mountains. She was just a beautiful, high-spirited girl that
everybody loved, that never really lacked for anything."
In March of 1979, at age eleven, Kris bumped her knee. In early May
doctors found a malignancy; she was diagnosed as having bone cancer.
Her leg was amputated, and she began undergoing chemotherapy. "It
didn't slow her down much," Haag said. "She swam. She got her
swimming certificate, her life-saving at the end of the summer."
Kristen asked her parents to get her amputated leg analyzed, "so other
children won't get what I've got."
Kris Haag died before the year ended. Her parents agonized over
where her disease could have come from and then heard about a fire at
the Rocky Flats plutonium facility, six miles from their home. "When
she was just two years old I built her a sandbox in the backyard," her
father told us. "I later found out that was the year they had the big
fire at Rocky Flats."
In talking with us and with a film crew from {Dark Circle}, a
documentary on nuclear hazards, Rex Haag outlined his fear that the
same factory whose sloppy practices had killed Leroy Krumback and his
coworkers inside its walls had also claimed his daughter six miles
away. "The plutonium that went out with that fire must've carried
right into her sandbox. It just tears me up to think about it now.
We were right downwind."[1]
So was Denver.
Like the dozen-odd other facilities in the American nuclear weapons
production chain, Rocky Flats has been plagued not only with hazardous
working conditions, but with accidents and uncontrolled radiation
emissions that have threatened the health of millions of downwind
Americans like the Haag family.
At Rocky Flats two major fires and a wide range of accidents and
unexpected leaks have led to charges that the plant has seriously
contaminated the nearby countryside; has caused a plague of
reproductive problems, mutations, and death among farm animals
downwind; and has led to an escalated cancer rate among human
residents in the Denver area. It has also raised serious questions
about the entire process of producing nuclear bombs.
------
1. Rex Haag, quoted in {Dark Circle}, and Rex Haag, interview, May 1981.
------
Bombs Away
The American handling of atomic weapons in peacetime has been
riddled with mishaps. The most spectacular accidents have come in the
mere transport of the bombs from one place to another.
In early 1958, for example, a B-47 crashed into a fighter plane and
jettisoned a nuclear weapon into the sea off Savannah Beach, Georgia.
The bomb was never found.
Later that year another B-47 accidentally dropped an atomic bomb
while flying over Florence, South Carolina. When it hit the ground,
an explosion with the power of several hundred pounds of TNT blasted
out a crater thirty-five feet deep and spread a ring of plutonium
around the area. Local residents preparing for a family picnic heard
it coming and barely had time to duck for cover. "It blew out the
side and top of the garage just as my boy ran inside with me," said
Walter "Bill" Gregg, whose family was injured in the blast. "The
timbers were falling around us. There was a green, foggy haze, then a
cloud of black smoke. It lasted about thirty seconds. When it
cleared up, I looked at the house. The top was blown in and a side
almost blown off." The government later dragged Gregg's compensation
claims through the courts. He finally won fifty-four thousand
dollars, but was left deeply embittered by the experience.[2]
In 1961 two more American atomic bombs were dropped over Goldsboro,
North Carolina, by a crashing B-52. One deployed a parachute, which
eased its fall to earth; the other broke apart on impact. Another
B-52 with four hydrogen bombs aboard crashed into an ice floe near
Thule, Greenland. The entire plane and its cargo apparently
disintegrated, leaving a radioactive hole nearly half a mile long in
its wake. With abundant apologies to the Danish government, which
rules Greenland, the military was forced to ship 1.7 million gallons
of contaminated ice and snow back to the United States for disposal.
In January of 1966 yet another B-52 crashed into its refueling tanker
and spewed three hydrogen bombs onto the fishing village of Palomares,
Spain. A fourth bomb dropped into the Mediterranean. TNT exploded in
two of the bombs and spread plutonium over a square mile, forcing the
U.S. to destroy local crops and remove tons of radioactive topsoil
back to South Carolina for burial.
In all, the U.S. military admits to twenty-seven accidents involving
nuclear weapons--which it terms "Broken Arrows." Independent critics
charge the figure is more like 125.[3]
If the handling of nuclear bombs has been less than perfect, so has
their production. In 1963, for example, a fire at the AEC's Medina
works in San Antonio touched off 120,000 tons of explosives and sent a
uranium cloud into the environs of one of Texas's largest cities. At
least two major explosions also ripped through the AEC's Burlington,
Iowa, bomb-assembly plant. And the AEC's hydrogen-bomb fabrication
plant at Pantex, Texas (near Amarillo), was severely damaged by a
freak hailstorm, despite its supposed invulnerability to enemy
attack.[4]
Significant quantities of radiation have also leaked into the
environment. In 1974 the operators of the huge Savannah River weapons
facility at Aiken, South Carolina, accidentally released some 435,000
curies of radioactive tritium in a single day--the largest single
tritium emission ever reported in the U.S. Studies of the local water
system show serious contamination, and there are preliminary
indications of an escalated cancer rate among people living near the
plant.[5]
Overall, the American nuclear weapons production program has been
plagued with mismanagement, cost overruns, sloppy handling of
radioactive materials, and low worker morale.
All of which may have found its ultimate expression at the Idaho
Nuclear Engineering Laboratory (INEL), a vast outpost where research-
and-development projects are conducted for the military, spent nuclear
submarine fuel is recycled, and military radioactive wastes are
stored.
INEL has a bleak history. In 1960 three technicians were killed
there when a fuel rod blew out of a small test reactor, piercing the
body of one and pinning him to the reactor containment, high above the
core. The other two men were hopelessly contaminated, and pieces of
their bodies had to be buried in lead caskets. An NRC official later
indicated that the "accident" may have been caused deliberately by one
of the technicians in a bizarre suicide-murder plot stemming from a
love triangle at the plant.[6] In subsequent years INEL has been
plagued with sloppy handling of nuclear wastes. Concentrated uranium
was accidentally dumped on a nearby road. Far more serious, INEL
management from 1952 to 1970 deliberately dumped some sixteen billion
gallons of liquid wastes into wells that feed directly into the water
table below. Radioactive contamination has been found 7.5 miles away,
angering local farmers and raising questions about the long-term fate
of the huge Snake River Aquifer, a major underground water source for
much of the American Northwest.[7]
An even more severe accident, however, occurred during the 1978
World Series. With the Yankees leading the Dodgers 7-2, the plant
supervisor was engrossed in the game on a portable TV set he had
sneaked, against regulations, into the facility. Had he not been so
involved in watching New York win yet another World Championship, he
might have noticed that an abnormal buildup of radioactivity was
occurring in a small uranium-processing column nearby. No one was
checking the plant's monitoring devices. One recording chart had run
out of paper two weeks earlier. Meanwhile the solution in the
processing column was dangerously unbalanced. As the game was getting
under way, uranium concentrations in the column were sixty times what
they should have been.
Suddenly, at 8:45 P.M., high-radiation alarms began ringing around
the plant. The panicked supervisor abandoned the Yankees. Operators
in the control room fled to a sheltered area.[8] Fortunately the
column was brought under control. But official figures showed that at
least eight thousand curies of radioactive iodine, krypton, and xenon
had been released into the atmosphere, more than enough to threaten
the health of anyone downwind.[9]
The supervisor was later fired. An investigation of worker
alienation and low morale at INEL concluded that the situation was
bad, with no easy solutions available. As a health physicist who
worked on the study told {The Idaho Statesman:} "It's a generic
question that I have no answer for."[10]
------
2. Clyde W. Burleson, {The Day the Bomb Fell on America} (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1978), p. 13. The Savannah Beach
incident appears on p. 16.
3. David E. Kaplan, "Where the Bombs Are," {New West}, April 1981, p. 80.
4. Rapoport, {Great American Bomb Machine}, pp. 22-23.
5. Robert Alvarez, {Report on the Savannah River Plant Study} (Washington,
D.C.: Environmental Policy Institute, 1980) (hereafter cited as
{Savannah River Study}).
6. Stephen Hanauer, NRC, interview, June 1981.
7. {High Country News}, February 8, 1980, p. 10, see also, {Progressive},
October 1980, and J. T. Barraclough, et al., {Hydrology of the Solid
Waste Burial Ground, as Related to the Potential Migration of
Radionuclides, Idaho National Engineering Laboratory}, Open File Report
#76-471 (Idaho Falls: U.S. Geological Survey, Water Resources
Division, August 1981) (hereafter cited as {Hydrology}).
8. {Idaho Statesman}, April 25, April 26, and May 22, 1979. The bulk of
the "World Series" story appears in the May 22 edition.
9. DOE, {Radioactive Waste Management Information: 1978 Summary and
Record-to-Date} (Washington, D.C. July 1979), p. 12 (DOE, Nuclear Fuel
Cycle Division, Idaho Operations Office, prepared by E.G. & G. Idaho).
10. {Idaho Statesman}, May 22, 1979.
------
Disaster at Rocky Flats
Two decades before that incident a devastating but little-known fire
at Rocky Flats laced the Colorado winds with deadly plutonium.
Built in the early 1950s at a cost of $240 million, the huge factory
produces plutonium triggers for hydrogen bombs. It sprawls at the
eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains, its tall stacks jutting out of
the flatlands. Steady winds rush through the canyons and into those
plains, often reaching blasts of up to eighty miles per hour--and
quite often heading toward Denver, sixteen miles to the
east/southeast.
In fact the air currents are so powerful that in the late 1970s the
Department of Energy chose a patch of land just west of the plutonium
plant as its prime national site for testing windmill components.
As a key link in the cold war rush to nuclear supremacy Rocky Flats
was built under great secrecy. The handling of large quantities of
plutonium at the plant was not made public until 1955, two years after
it had opened. There was no public input into choosing the site. The
military, said Dr. Tony Robbins, former director of the Colorado
Department of Health, "made a decision to place a plant with a large
quantity of plutonium and a lot of other trace elements pretty much
within the Denver metropolitan area." The siting was "clearly a
mistake."[11] Approximately 600,000 people live within twenty miles
of the plant.
A major component of the Rocky Flats operation is the glove box
production line. In it lumps of plutonium are measured, machined,
milled, and shaped to use in bomb triggers. The material is kept in
airtight boxes and manipulated by workers from the outside who use
rubber gloves fastened to the boxes, thus avoiding any contact with
the toxic metal inside.
But plutonium can catch fire spontaneously in air. In the evening
of September 11, 1957, some of the "skulls" on the glove box line of
Room 180 in Building 771 ignited. The fire was found by two plant
production men shortly after 10:00 P.M.
The area was designed to be fireproof. But it was soon a
radioactive inferno. Firemen switched on ventilating fans, but that
backfired, spreading flames to still more plutonium. They then
sprayed carbon dioxide into the area. That also failed. Meanwhile
the filters designed to trap plutonium escaping up the stacks caught
fire. The shift captain and other observers reported a billowing
black cloud pouring some 80 to 160 feet into the air above the 150-
foot-high stack of Building 771.
As the crisis intensified, plant officials struggled to find a
solution. They knew water would destroy millions of dollars' worth of
complex equipment. They also knew the intense heat might flash the
water into enough steam to blast into an explosion and send even more
plutonium particles flying toward Denver. But when the carbon dioxide
failed, there was no alternative. In the early hours of the morning
water began pouring into the blaze. Fortunately it worked. The fire
went dead roughly thirteen hours after it began.[12]
The damage was extensive. Initial AEC reports contended that there
was "no spread of radioactive contamination of any consequence." Seth
Woodruff, manager of the Rocky Flats AEC office, told the local media
that "possibly" some radiation had escaped. "But if so," he
emphasized, "the spread was so slight it could not immediately be
distinguished from radioactive background at the plant.[13]
But--as at Three Mile Island twenty-two years later--there was no
reliable equipment operable at the time to monitor the amount of
radiation that actually went out the stacks. Not until a week after
the fire were working gauges installed. Then, in a single day,
emissions registered sixteen thousand times the permissible level--a
full fifty years' worth of the allowable quota.
Some fourteen to twenty kilograms were estimated to have burned in
the fire, enough to make at least two bombs equivalent to the one
dropped on Nagasaki.[14] And that may not have been the worst of it.
According to a study based on figures from Dow Chemical, which
operated Rocky Flats at the time, some thirteen grams of plutonium
were routinely deposited daily on the first stage of filters in
Building 771. According to government documents obtained in a lawsuit
against the plant, the 620 filters in the building's main plenum had
not been changed since they were installed four years before the fire.
Thus a pair of local researchers theorized that as much as 250
kilograms of airborne plutonium could have gone out the stacks from
the burning filters alone.[15]
Such an enormous release of plutonium struck some in the Denver area
as beyond plausibility. But a much lower estimate of 48.8 pounds of
plutonium--one tenth of the 250-kilogram figure--was calculated as
enough to administer each of the 1.4 million people in the Denver
environs a radiation dose one million times the maximum permissible
lung burden.[16] "I find the high release estimates hard to believe,"
we were told by Dr. John Cobb of the University of Colorado Medical
School. "But even if only one gram of plutonium escaped, as the plant
operators say, that would be cause for concern."[17] Nor was
plutonium the fire's only by-product. The water used to extinguish it
became infused with radioactivity. In this case some thirty thousand
gallons of it escaped unfiltered, thus spreading its contamination
into local streams and the water table.
Through the whole crisis there had been no warning to local schools,
health departments, police, or elected officials that something
extraordinary and dangerous was happening at Rocky Flats. There were
no backup plans for evacuation, no notification to area farmers or
ranchers to safeguard their health or that of their animals.
And though some of the buildings were heavily contaminated, bomb-
trigger production was back under way within a few days. Over the
next thirteen months, Rocky Flats's operators recorded twenty-one
fires, explosions, spills of radioactive material, and contamination
incidents inside the plant.[18]
------
11. Rocky Flats Action Group, {Local Hazard, Global Threat Rocky Flats
Nuclear Weapons Plant} (Rocky Flats Action Group, 2239 E. Colfax,
Denver, CO, 1977), p. 3 (hereafter cited as {Local Hazard}).
12. Carl Johnson, "Comments on the 1957 Fire at the Rocky Flats Plant, in
Jefferson County, Colorado," report to the Conference on the Relation
of Environmental Pollution to the Cancer Problem in Colorado, at the
American Medical Center Cancer Research Center and Hospital in
Lakewood, Colorado, September 1980 (hereafter cited as "Comments");
and Rapoport, {Great American Bomb Machine}, pp. 27-28.
13. {Denver Post}, September 12, 1957.
14. Johnson,"Comments."
15. For the 250-kilogram estimate, Johnson in "Comments" cites R. W.
Woodward, "Plutonium Particulate Study in Booster System No. 3
(Building 771) Filter Plenum" (Golden, Colo.: The Rocky Flats Plant,
January 27, 1971); and H. Holme and S. Chinn, "Pre-Trial Statement,"
Civil Action Nos. 75-M-1111, 75-M-1162, and 75-M-1296 (Denver: U.S.
District Court for the District of Colorado, 1978). See also, J. B.
Owen, "Reviews of the Exhaust Air Filtering and Air Sampling, Building
771," unpublished manuscript, Rocky Flats Plant, Golden, Colorado,
March 14, 1963.
16. Rocky Flats Action Group, {Local Hazard}, p. 3; see also, F. W. Krey
and E. P. Hardy, {Plutonium in Soil Around the Rocky Flats Plant} (New
York: AEC Health and Safety Library, 1970), p. 36; Carl Johnson, et
al., "Plutonium Hazard in Respirable Dust on the Surface of Soil,"
{Science}, August 6, 1979, pp. 488-490; and Jack Anderson, "Colorado
Plant Eyed as Radiation Source," {Washington Post}, March 25, 1979,
p. D25.
17. John C. Cobb, interview, May 1981.
18. Rapoport, {Great American Bomb Machine}, p. 28.
------
More Fires
A continent and an ocean away, in countryside that could hardly have
been less like the flatland at the foot of the Rockies, Britain was
also facing a disaster from bomb production. Amid the cold, deep
lakes and lush farmlands of the English north country, fire struck the
plutonium production reactor at Windscale in early October 1957--less
than a month after the first fire at Rocky Flats. Windscale was
designed to produce plutonium for bombs. Rocky Flats made such
plutonium--once it was chemically processed--into triggers.
On October 7 uranium fuel pellets in the Windscale reactor caught
fire. Attempts to quench them failed.
Though the plant was a military facility, word of the accident soon
spread. The public was told the radiation releases were harmless, and
there was no danger of an explosion. Both statements were false.
Radiation monitors at the plant site and in the countryside showed
high levels of contamination. As at Rocky Flats, carbon dioxide could
not extinguish the fire.
On its fifth day plant officials prepared to use their last resort-
-water.
At 9:00 A.M. two plant technicians and a local fire chief dragged a
hose to the top of the containment dome and aimed it at the flaming
core within. Plant workers and firemen ducked behind steel barriers
and braced themselves for the worst. As water surged through the
hose, radioactive steam poured out the stacks and into the wind.
There was no explosion. The core was soon flooded; danger of a
meltdown was over.
But by Monday, October 14, a ban on the sale of milk had been
enforced over a two-hundred-square-mile area. Thousands of gallons of
contaminated milk were dumped into the Irish Sea. Hundreds of cows,
goats, and sheep were confiscated, shot, and buried. Farmers who
slaughtered their animals for meat were told to send the thyroid
glands to the government for testing.
Workers at the nearby Calder Hall reactor were ordered to scrub down
with stiff brushes to remove contamination from their skin. Coal
miners working in nearby shafts were replaced with "fresh" workers who
had not been exposed to the radiation that had filtered through the
mine ventilation systems. And in London, three hundred miles away,
radiation monitors noted significantly increased levels.
Despite the national emergency that had been proclaimed, British
officials told the public it was unlikely "in the highest degree" that
anyone had been harmed by the accident.[19] But several months later
British officials conceded to a United Nations conference at Geneva
that nearly seven hundred curies of cesium and strontium had been
released, plus twenty thousand curies of I-131. The admitted iodine
dose represented more than fourteen hundred times the quantity
American officials later claimed had been released during the 1979
accident at Three Mile Island.[20]
Like its ally across the Atlantic, the British government studiously
avoided systematic follow-up studies on the health of area residents.
When a local health officer named Frank Madge used a Geiger counter to
confirm abnormal radiation levels in mosses and lichens, officials
from the British Atomic Energy Authority actively discouraged
publication of his findings.[21]
A study of health data in downwind European countries later
indicated a clear impact of the accident on infant-mortality rates.
It was, Dr. Ernest Sternglass told us, "as if a small bomb had been
detonated in northern Great Britain."[22]
Eight years and eight days after the accident at Windscale--on
October 15 1965--yet another major fire at Rocky Flats contaminated
twenty-five workers with up to seventeen times the maximum permissible
dose.
In 1968 a truck carrying contaminated soil to an off-site burial
ground was found to be leaking, forcing plant operators to repave one
mile of road. It was a modest measure at best, considering that the
half-life of plutonium is more than twenty-four thousand years, while
the "full-life" of asphalt paving is far less.[23]
Then, on Sunday, May 11, 1969--at a time when little Kristen Haag
was likely to be playing in her sandbox six miles downwind--plutonium
stored in a cabinet at Rocky Flats ignited. The flames leapt into the
glove boxes of Buildings 776 and 777. At 2:27 P.M., when the fire
alarms sounded, the blaze was out of control.
According to veteran reporter Roger Rapoport, author of {The Great
American Bomb Machine:} "When company firemen reached [Building]
776-777 they found tons of flammable radiation shielding feeding the
blaze. The fire-fighters donned respirators and charged into the
dense smoke." Once again plant officials hesitated to use water. But
when the carbon dioxide supplies ran out--after ten minutes--they had
no choice. At times the smoke billowed so thickly that firemen were
"forced to crawl out along exit lines painted on the floor." After
four hours the fire was under control. But isolated areas continued
to burn through the night.
The AEC first estimated the damage at three million dollars. It
soon proved to be more like forty-five million dollars, ranking it as
the most expensive industrial fire in American history at that time.
It would take two years and hundreds of regular and part-time
employees to clean up the mess. One regular plant janitor refused to
help in the cleanup for fear of radiation poisoning. He was fired.
Far from letting a major radioactive fire slow down bomb production,
Rocky Flats operators continued full-speed construction of a seventy-
four-million-dollar addition designed to increase plant capacity by
half.[24]
Nor were the fires the only source of contamination. Dow records
showed that at least one thousand barrels of contaminated lathe oil
were burned in the open air during their operation of the plant,
sending unknown quantities of uranium into the air. And despite
assurances to the public that no radioactive waste was being stored on
site, more than fourteen hundred barrels of it were found there.
When AEC officials decided to move those barrels in the spring of
1970, a Dow report confirmed that "ten percent of the drums had holes
apparently caused by rust and corrosion. . . . Many of the liquid
drums developed leaks during handling or after exposure to air and
sun."[25]
One Dow study indicated that up to forty-two grams of plutonium had
been carried off by winds blowing through the drum storage area.[26]
Another Dow report conceded that normal plant operations were
resulting in the daily release of millions of individual particles of
plutonium, each of which could lodge in a human or animal lung, or be
ingested with local-grown food and feed. Such particles are known to
cause serious internal damage.
DOE monitoring records kept from 1970 to 1977 indicated that levels
of airborne plutonium were higher in the Rocky Flats area than at any
of fifty other stations around the U.S. Dust samples downwind showed
plutonium concentrations 3,390 times what might be expected from
fallout. Evidence also surfaced that the nearby town reservoir had
been contaminated.[27]
Constant mishaps at Rocky Flats led to a growing distrust among area
residents. As early as 1969, in the wake of the fire that spring, a
group of scientists from local industries and universities asked DOE
and the AEC to monitor the soil downwind. Their request was refused.
So Dr. Edward Martell, a nuclear chemist working at the National
Center for Atmospheric Research, with considerable experience from the
bomb-testing era, decided in the fall of 1969 to conduct some tests of
his own. His findings confirmed some of the community's worst fears.
Abnormal plutonium levels were clearly evident in soil to the east and
southeast of the plant.
Martell quickly came under attack from plant supporters. But when
the AEC did its own study of downwind soil, it also had to admit to
significant contamination. "We find his results are accurate,"
conceded a ranking military spokesman. "We don't disagree with his
new data. As far as measurements, sampling techniques, and knowledge
of science, we think Martell is a very competent scientist." The AEC
did, however, question Martell's health conclusions. "While it is
true," they said, "that some plutonium is escaping from the plant, we
don't believe it presents a significant health hazard to Denver."
Dr. Arthur Tamplin--at the time a leading AEC health researcher--
strongly disagreed. The Martell study "shows about one trillion pure
plutonium oxide particles have escaped from Rocky Flats," he warned.
"These are very hot particles. You may only have to inhale 300 of
them to double your risk of lung cancer." Tamplin calculated that if
plutonium had been spread as Martell suggested, lung-cancer rates in
Denver could rise, over time, 10 percent. An additional two thousand
Coloradans could fall victim to Rocky Flats.[28]
------
19. John G. Fuller, {We Almost Lost Detroit} (New York: Reader's Digest
Press, 1975), p. 86. The Windscale story is told on pp. 71-87.
20. Virginia Brodine, {Radioactive Contamination} (New York: Harcourt
Brace, 1975).
21. Ibid.
22. Ernest Sternglass, interview, October 1980. High cesium levels in
people eating fish caught "in the path of the Windscale effluent" are
noted in E. D. Williams, et al., "Whole Body Cesium-137 Levels in Man
in Scotland, 1978-9," {Health Physics Journal} 40 (January 1981): 1-4.
The contamination seems to be coming from ongoing operations at the
Windscale reprocessing facility.
23. Rapoport, {Great American Bomb Machine}, pp. 31-36.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid., p. 25.
26. S. E. Hammond, "Industrial-Type Operations as a Source of Environmental
Plutonium" (Golden, Colo.: Dow Chemical Company, 1970).
27. Carl Johnson, "Cancer Incidence in an Area Contaminated with
Radionuclides Near a Nuclear Installation" (report presented at a
session sponsored by the Occupational Health and Safety, Environment,
Epidemiology, and Radiological Health sections of the American Public
Health Association at the 107th Annual Meeting, New York, November 9,
1979) (hereafter cited as "Cancer Incidence"). For a notation of
contamination in the Broomfield Reservoir, see also Rocky Flats Action
Group, {Local Hazard}, pp. 4-5.
28. Rapoport, {Great American Bomb Machine}, pp. 38-39.
------
A Grim Harvest
To Lloyd Mixon, Rocky Flats is an unwelcome newcomer. "I can walk
out the back door twenty feet and see where I was born," he told us
from his thirty-acre farm in Broomfield. "I was here a long time
before that plant was." Six miles to the east, Mixon can see the tall
stacks of the plutonium factory, with the winds blowing toward him
"right down out of the canyon."
In 1975 he told a joint congressional-gubernatorial commission that
bizarre problems had begun surfacing among his animals, problems in
quantities he had never seen before. There was a calf born hairless
with a body full of a watery substance and a liver "three times
normal." There were pigs and fowl with mutations. There was another
calf born dead with tissue that tested similar to cows exposed to
radiation under experimental conditions.
Mixon later told the crew from {Dark Circle} that pigs had been born
on his farm whose "nose and mouth [are] twisted, where they're not
able to nurse." Some, he added, had been born with five toes instead
of the normal four. Others had hips and ears badly deformed, "with
eyes that were not like they're supposed to be."
"We've had chickens with no eyes," he added, "you break open the
shell, they've got beaks like needles." Mixon continued, "We've had
them where their legs have been so badly twisted and turned that they
were unable to kick out of the shell. We had a chicken hatch with the
brains right on top of his head."
State health inspectors told Mixon his problems stemmed from poor
feed and hygiene. "They brought down what was supposed to be an
expert, and he didn't even know how long it took for the eggs of
different birds to hatch," said Mixon. But those birds that had
allegedly been deformed because of poor food and hygiene had been kept
in sanitary wire cages and fed commercial grain. "According to the
ticket on the feed we buy, it has everything adequate in it. So it's
caused from something else." Inbreeding was also suggested, but in
one case "the female came out of Pennsylvania and the male came out of
Texas. There's no way they could be related."
There were also charges of mismanagement. "I've had livestock ever
since I've been three years old," Mixon said. "My people back years
and years have had livestock."
Mixon's anger was reminiscent of the days when the AEC had scorned
sheep farmers whose animals had died in bomb fallout. And his
experiences matched those of a growing roster of farmers near nuclear
facilities whose animals seemed to serve as a bellwether for bad news
to come from radiation. In Pennsylvania, New York State, Vermont, New
Hampshire, Arkansas, and Colorado farmers have complained of bizarre
deformities, reproductive problems, and unexplained deaths among their
animals--problems that seem to have no other possible cause except
nearby nuclear facilities. In nearly every case "experts" from state
agriculture departments have discounted the claims, blaming other
factors ranging from weather to bad feed to inbreeding to
mismanagement.
But Lloyd Mixon blamed Rocky Flats. "We used to have several
different varieties of pheasants," he told {Dark Circle}. "We got
where they wouldn't produce. The eggs were infertile. So we just
went out of it. Then we had some lambs born with the guts, or the
insides hanging out. [Some would] be alive. We've had some born dead
that way. We've had kid goats born with growths on them. . . ."
And, he told us, there've been "geese who would walk across the yard
and all of a sudden, they'll stiffen up and die. There've been
deformities in cats, and they've stopped reproducing the way they
should. We've lost a couple of dogs with cancer."
The health department, Mixon added, won't release any data on other
cases. But Mixon has received numerous calls from neighbors,
including one who complained of eleven colts, all born in the same
season, all born blind. And there was general agreement that wildlife
had disappeared from the area. "You don't see a rabbit around here
anymore," he said. "And people that try to raise them . . . they just
stop reproducing."[29] Mixon noted that many of his neighbors prefer
to keep quiet about what is happening for fear of undercutting the
value of their property and their produce.
One of his neighbors who did agree to talk with us--anonymously--
told us she had lost so many colts to stillbirths and deformities that
she went out of the horse-raising business altogether. "The animals
aren't what they used to be and nobody's is getting any better," she
said.[30]
Unfortunately the problems do not seem to be limited to animals. In
the late 1970s Dr. Carl Johnson began finding abnormal cancer rates
among human beings downwind from Rocky Flats.
The stolid, conservative Dr. Johnson is former director of the
Health Department of Jefferson County, which encompasses Rocky Flats.
He is also an officer with the Army Reserve and maintains a top-secret
"Q" clearance. As a public-health officer Johnson became disturbed by
the constant malfunctioning of the nuclear industry and began his own
studies to confirm or deny what the AEC and DOE were telling--and not
telling--the public about Rocky Flats.
Dividing the downwind area into four zones and correcting for age,
race, sex, and ethnicity, Johnson found male cancer rates in the zone
closest to the plant to be 24 percent higher than in the zone farthest
away. Intermediate zones showed excess rates of 15 percent and 8
percent. Female cancer rates were 10 percent higher in the near zone
as opposed to the farthest one, with intermediate zones showing
excesses of 5 percent and 4 percent. The excess cases for both sexes
involved cancers of the lung and bronchus, upper respiratory tract,
colon, rectum stomach, gonads, liver, thyroid, and brain as well as
leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma.
There were other alarming statistics as well. Johnson's studies of
people forty-five to sixty-four years of age in eight census tracts
near the plant showed a doubled lung-cancer and leukemia death rate
over subjects living in "relatively uncontaminated" zones. In essence
Johnson found 491 excess cancer cases when the DOE said there would be
less than one.
A separate study of a large suburban area near Rocky Flats found a
congenital malformation rate of 14.5 per 1000 births as opposed to
10.4 per 1000 for the rest of the county, and 10.1 for the state
overall.[31]
Johnson's findings raised public awareness of Rocky Flats and helped
fuel a movement to close the plant. His findings also put him in a
difficult political position. Local real-estate interests began
applying pressure to have Johnson fired from his job as Jefferson
County health director. In May of 1981 they succeeded.
Meanwhile autopsy reports on workers at Rocky Flats showed plutonium
concentrations in all organs of their bodies. And a study for the EPA
by Dr. John C. Cobb of the University of Colorado School of Medicine
indicated preliminary evidence of excess plutonium levels among other
local human autopsy specimens plutonium that was traceable by its
isotope-ratios to Rocky Flats. But in an interview Cobb warned us
that plutonium might not necessarily be the chief culprit in any area
health problems that might surface. "I'm not sure plutonium is the
right thing to look for," he told us. "They also burned thousands of
gallons of oil with uranium chips in it out there. A combination of
the uranium in the cutting oil might be more important than the
plutonium."[32]
Whether it was uranium or plutonium, or both, Lloyd Mixon had been
directly exposed. "I had some tumors taken off my chest," he told the
{Dark Circle} crew. "I've had my thyroid taken out. I'm tired quite
a bit of the time, more than what was usual, and [I've] got a numbness
in my left side, my shoulders. They found a growth on my right arm
between my elbow and my shoulder. . . . My daughter was born with a
hole in her heart," he said. Mixon also noted that his neighbors
complained of being perpetually overtired, numbness in their hands,
and other inexplicable health problems.
There was also talk of "children being born retarded," he told us,
"of them with mental problems."
Few of his neighbors, he said, would point an accusatory finger at
Rocky Flats. But, he asked us, "if it isn't that place, what is
it?"[33]
For Rex Haag there wasn't much doubt. He had lived within six miles
of the plutonium factory, and as a contractor had built another five
dozen houses nearby "without the least bit of knowledge of that being
a dangerous area."[34]
After Kristen Haag's death from bone cancer, the body was cremated.
At her father s request, her ashes were sent away for testing. When
the results were slow in coming back, Johnson called the laboratory,
where a technician told him "there was some problem because there
appeared to be a large amount of plutonium 238" in the ashes.
And when the official report finally arrived months later, it cited
what Johnson termed "rather high" levels of plutonium 238.[35]
Rex Haag soon helped organize a business coalition to help close
Rocky Flats. People justify the operation of the plant "in the name
of national interest, or national security," he said. "But I wonder
if the same people who are saying that, if it were {their} child, if
they could actually sit there and say the same thing."[36]
Lloyd Mixon had similar questions. "I've been hearing a lot more
problems lately," he told us. "In a few years things are gonna get a
lot worse."[37]
------
29. Lloyd Mixon, "Statement," {Hearings of Governor Lamm's Task Force on
the Rocky Flats Plutonium Facility} (Boulder, Colo.: April 1975); in
{Dark Circle}, and interview, May 1981.
30. Anonymous, interview, April 1981.
31. Johnson, "Cancer Incidence"; and Carl Johnson, "Evaluation of Cancer
Incidence for Anglos in the Period 1969-1971 in Areas of Census Tracts
with Measured Concentrations of Plutonium Soil Contamination Downwind
from the Rocky Flats Plant in the Denver Standard Metropolitan
Statistical Area," 5th International Congress of the International
Radiation Protection Association, Jerusalem, Israel, March 9-14, 1980.
32. John C. Cobb, et al., "Weapons Grade Plutonium in Humans Near Rocky
Flats," abstract submitted for a poster session at the AAAS Annual
Meeting, Toronto, Canada, January 1981; and Cobb, interview, April
1981.
33. Mixon in {Dark Circle}, and interview.
34. Haag in {Dark Circle}.
35. Johnson in {Dark Circle}, and interview, July 1981.
36. Haag in {Dark Circle}.
37. Mixon interview.
------
* * * * * * *
[part 10 of 18]
9
Uranium Milling and the Church Rock Disaster
Church Rock, New Mexico, would seem an improbable spot for a nuclear
disaster. A dusty cluster of industrial machinery set in the arid
mesas of the great Southwest, its most distinguishing feature might be
considered a large pond of murky liquid, unusual in such dry terrain.
Church Rock also hosts a series of underground uranium mine shafts, a
mill, and a scattered community of Navajo families who survive by
herding cattle, goats, and sheep.
A deep gully leads from the mine site into the Rio Puerco, which
once flowed only when fed by spring rains. Now it is wet year round,
bolstered by water pumped from the mine shafts to keep them from
flooding. That water flowing from the mine is laced with radioactive
isotopes. And the pond hides a burden of contaminated waste.
The 350 families who water livestock in the Rio Puerco rely on their
small herds to eke out a meager existence. Many are members of the
Dine--Navajo--Nation, with incomes in the range of two thousand
dollars per year. During the hot days of the desert summer local
children would play in the stream as their parents tended the goats,
sheep, and cattle.
A Wall of Radioactive Water
In the early morning hours of July 16, 1979--fourteen weeks after
the accident at Three Mile Island--all of that changed. The dam at
Church Rock burst sending eleven hundred tons of radioactive mill
wastes and ninety million gallons of contaminated liquid pouring
toward Arizona. The wall of water backed up sewers and lifted manhole
covers in Gallup, twenty miles downstream, and caught people all along
the river unawares. "There were no clouds, but all of a sudden the
water came," remembered Herbert Morgan of Manuelito, New Mexico. "I
was wondering where it came from. Not for a few days were we
told."[1]
No one was killed in the actual flood. But along the way it left
residues of radioactive uranium, thorium, radium, and polonium, as
well as traces of metals such as cadmium, aluminum, magnesium,
manganese, molybdenum, nickel, selenium, sodium, vanadium, zinc, iron,
lead and high concentrations of sulfates.[2] The spill degraded the
western Rio Puerco as a water source. It carried toxic metals already
detectable at least seventy miles downstream.[3] And it raised the
specter that uranium mining in the Colorado River Basin may be
endangering Arizona's Lake Mead, and with it the drinking water of Las
Vegas, Los Angeles, and much of Arizona.
Except for the bomb tests, Church Rock was probably the biggest
single release of radioactive poisons on American soil. Ironically it
occurred thirty-four years to the day after the first atomic test
explosion at Trinity, New Mexico, not far away.
The source of the catastrophe was uranium mill wastes. Usable
uranium is extracted from the sandstone in which it is usually found
by grinding it fine and leaching it with sulfuric acid. The acid
carries off the desired isotopes. But the leftover waste sands--
"tailings"--still contain 85 percent of the ore's original
radioactivity, and 99.9 percent of its original volume. There are now
some 140 million tons of them scattered around the West. NRC
commissioner Victor Gilinsky and others consider them "the dominant
contribution to radiation exposure" of the entire nuclear fuel
cycle.[4] The acid milling liquids--called "liquor"--also dissolve
dangerous traces of thorium 230, radium 222, lead 210, and other
isotopes. Because of their high radioactivity the tailings and liquor
both must be isolated from the environment--but nobody has yet
demonstrated a method with any long-term success.
At Church Rock several hundred million gallons of the liquor were
being held in a large pond so the liquids could evaporate off and the
solid tailings be stored. The whole complex was owned by the United
Nuclear Corporation (UNC), a Virginia-based firm with assets in the
hundreds of millions of dollars and influence in the New Mexico state
government. Its dam and pond at Church Rock were opened with the
understanding that they would operate just eighteen months; twenty-
five months later, at the time of the accident, no alternative sites
were being developed.
The UNC dam wall was an earthen structure with a clay core, twenty-
five feet high and thirty feet wide. On the morning of the accident a
twenty-foot-wide section of it gave way, wreaking havoc downstream.
In the desert, water is synonymous with life. In contaminating the
Rio Puerco, UNC had threatened the basis of existence for all of the
people who lived downstream. For the first time they confronted the
terrors of radioactivity. "Our hearts have been broken," said Bodie
McCray of Tsayotah. "We don't sleep worrying about it. I worry about
our children and their children."
Indeed the hundreds of families living near the spill now had to
live with the same kinds of uncertainties just beginning to plague the
people of central Pennsylvania. "Ever since the accident we've been
wanting the truth," said Kee Bennally, a silversmith playing a lead
role in the multimillion-dollar lawsuit against UNC. "They say it's
not dangerous and in a couple of days they say it is dangerous. It's
been really confusing, especially for the old people. They don't know
anything about this, the contamination, the radiation. . . ."[5]
What made the Church Rock disaster especially tragic was that it
could have been avoided. Soon after the spill an angry U.S.
representative Morris Udall (D-Ariz.) told a congressional hearing
that "at least three and possibly more Federal and state regulatory
agencies had ample opportunity to conclude that such an accident was
likely to occur." Even before the dam had been licensed "the
company's own consultant predicted that the soil under this dam was
susceptible to extreme settling which was likely to cause [its]
cracking and subsequent failure."[6]
Cracks had developed in the dam the year it opened, said Udall.
Aerial photographs revealed that liquor, which was supposed to be kept
away from the dam face, was lapping against it. State-required
seepage devices and monitoring wells had never been built or inspected
for.[7]
UNC's chief operating officer, J. David Hann, countered Udall by
blaming the accident on "a unique rock point, beneath the breach."
Because the dam had been built partly on bedrock and partly on softer
ground, that rock point "served as a fulcrum, resulting in transverse
cracking." The breach was "like many things you undertake," Hann told
the congressional hearing. "They have a risk, and we undertook this.
There was a circumstance that was not foreseen at the time."[8]
But coming in the wake of Three Mile Island, and in light of
considerable evidence of impending disaster, Hann's arguments seemed
to carry little weight. In a special report the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers charged that if the dam had been built to legal
specifications, according to approved design, "it is possible that the
failure would not have occurred."[9] And a spokesman from the New
Mexico State Engineer's Office added that a "consensus" of engineers
who reviewed the accident agreed that "had the drain zone been
constructed according to the approved plans and specifications, and
had the tailings beach been in place as recommended by [UNC's]
engineers, it is likely that failure would not have occurred."[10]
At the time of the disaster the dam was carrying a load of tailings
liquor at least two feet higher than allowed for in its designs. The
company had also failed to tell the state that cracking had been
observed. "There were significant warnings appearing before the dam
broke," said William Dircks, director of the NRC's Office of Nuclear
Material Safety and Safeguards. "I think that is the troubling part
of it."[11]
Ultimately, for the company, the accident would mean a loss of some
revenue and bad publicity. For the people downstream life itself was
at stake. "Somehow," complained Frank Paul, vice-president of the
Navajo Tribal Council, "United Nuclear Corporation was permitted to
locate a tailings pond and a dam on an unstable geologic formation.
Somehow UNC was allowed to design an unsafe tailings dam not in
conformance to its own design criteria. Somehow UNC was permitted to
inadequately deal with warning cracks that had appeared over two years
prior to the date the dam failed. Somehow UNC was permitted to
continue a temporary dam for six months beyond its design life.
Somehow UNC was permitted to have a tailings dam without either an
adequate contingency plan or sufficient men and material in place to
deal with a spill. Somehow UNC was permitted to deal with the spill
by doing almost nothing."[12]
Ironically the Church Rock dam was a "state-of-the-art" structure.
Paul Robinson, an Albuquerque-based expert on mining issues, warned
the Udall hearings that "UNC-Church Rock was the most recently built
and the most carefully engineered tailings dam in the state." Similar
dams owned by Anaconda, Kerr-McGee, UNC-Homestake Partners, and Sohio
were "disasters waiting to happen."[13]
------
1. Kathie Saltzstein, "Navajos Ask $12.5 Million in UNC Suits," {Gallup
Independent}, August 14, 1980 (hereafter cited as "Navajos"); for a
general analysis of the relationship between Indians and uranium
development, see Joseph G. Jorgenson, et al., "Native Americans and
Energy Development" (Cambridge, Ma.: Anthropology Resources Center,
1978); for a broad range of information on the issue of uranium mining
and milling, contact the Black Hills Alliance, Box 2508, Rapid City, SD
57709.
2. Edwin K. Swanson, "Water Quality Problems in the Puerco River," paper
presented at the American Water Resources Association Symposium, Water
Quality Monitoring and Management, Tucson, Arizona, October 24, 1980.
3. Edwin K. Swanson, interview, May 1981.
4. Victor Gilinsky, "The Problem of Uranium Mill Tailings," paper
presented at the Pacific Southwest Minerals and Energy Conference,
Anaheim, California, May 2, 1978 (Washington, D.C.: NRC Office of
Public Affairs), No. S-78-3, p. 3 (hereafter cited as "Problem"). See
also, EPA, {Environmental Analysis of the Uranium Fuel Cycle, Part
I--Fuel Supply}, EPA-520/9-73-003-B, Washington, D.C: EPA Office of
Radiation Programs, 1973, p. 26.
5. Chris Shuey, "Calamity at Church Rock, New Mexico," {Saturday Magazine,
Scottsdale Daily Progress}, Part 1, February 14, 1981, p. 3 (hereafter
cited as "Calamity").
6. U.S. Congress, House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs,
Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, {Mill Tailings Dam Break at
Church Rock, New Mexico}, 96th Congress, October 22, 1979, pp. 1-4
(hereafter cited as {Church Rock Hearings}).
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid., p. 120.
9. Ibid., p. 3.
10. Ibid., p. 42.
11. Ibid., p. 39.
12. Ibid., p. 8.
13. Ibid., pp. 225-232.
------
Thorium and Other Damage
Soon after the spill UNC sent small crews downstream with shovels
and fifty-five-gallon drums to begin cleaning up. Bitter complaints
from local residents and the state soon forced UNC to expand its crews
to thirty to thirty-five workers. "We have removed more than 3500
tons of potentially affected sediment from the streambed to a distance
of more than 10 miles from the mill," Hann told the Udall hearings.
"The combination of these clean-up efforts, and natural effects, such
as rain, have largely restored normal conditions in the area."[14]
But an Arizona water-quality official complained in an interview
with us that the rains had merely transported the pollutants into his
state.[15] And Robinson pointed out that UNC had in fact removed just
1 percent of the tailings and liquid known to have spilled from the
dam. More than eighteen months after the accident indications were
strong that radiation and other pollutants had penetrated thirty feet
into the earth. A report by a Cincinnati-based firm brought in as a
consultant by the EPA warned that at least two nearby aquifers had
been put "at risk."[16]
Furthermore when the spill overflowed the banks of the Rio Puerco,
it left behind a series of pools. When ordered by the state to
monitor them, UNC chose to look for their uranium content.
But uranium was precisely what the company had been working to
remove in the milling process. "It was a subterfuge on the company's
part," said Dr. Jorge Winterer, an M.D. working with the Indian Health
Service in Gallup at the time of the spill. "There were children up
and down the river playing in those stagnant pools, and they were
deadly poisonous. But UNC chose to monitor them for the element they
knew was least likely to be there."[17]
In fact the NRC's William Dircks told the Udall hearing that those
pools showed levels of radiation one hundred to five hundred times
natural background. What UNC might have missed were substantial
quantities of thorium 230 and radium 226. Both are alpha-emitters and
are extremely dangerous if ingested or inhaled.
Thorium 230, for example, has a half-life of eighty thousand years
and is believed by some to be as toxic as plutonium. A silver-white
metal, thorium tends to deposit in the liver, bone marrow, and
lymphatic tissue, where even minute quantities can cause cancer and
leukemia. If inhaled as dust it can cause lung cancer. According to
a study by Winterer, under some circumstances thorium can become
"trapped" in the body, making it "a permanent source of radiation"
there, and thus doing untold damage to the human organism.[18]
Winterer soon came under personal attack in the wake of his candid
comments. UNC was a power in state politics. It had twenty-three
hundred employees and an annual budget within New Mexico of $140
million.[19] When Winterer contradicted assertions from his superiors
that there were no health effects from the spill, he was threatened
with legal action. And when he began holding seminars in the local
library on the dangers of radiation, Winterer was told by a former
friend that he and his family "would be a lot better off if we got out
of New Mexico right away."[20]
Jorge Winterer was not the only one concerned about UNC's assessment
of the spill. Dr. Thomas Gesell, a health physics professor at the
University of Texas School of Public Health, and a staff member of the
Presidential Kemeny Commission on the effects of the accident at Three
Mile Island, also testified at the Udall hearings. Gesell said UNC's
monitoring data were self-contradictory and out-of-phase with the
state's. One UNC report had listed background levels as being {lower}
after the spill than before it. Some company reports on downstream
radiation levels claimed findings 150 times lower than the
state's.[21]
Meanwhile contamination had apparently spread to local animals. One
veterinarian told a documentary crew from Eleventh Hour Films that
abnormal radiation levels had been found in the tissues of goats and
sheep that were drinking Rio Puerco water.[22] A study of eleven
animals by the Center for Disease Control confirmed the problem. The
CDC warned that kidneys and livers of local livestock might
concentrate high doses and should not be eaten.
The CDC also warned locals not to drink water from the river, and to
avoid its banks during windstorms, when radioactive particles might be
more easily inhaled. The CDC emphasized that radiation levels in
local animals did not exceed New Mexico standards. But it was
important to exercise caution because "the health risks of low doses
of radiation" were "not completely understood."[23]
A year after the spill Cubia Clayton of the state's Environmental
Improvement Division confirmed that the Rio Puerco was still too
dangerous for human or animal consumption. Clayton stated that it was
"obvious" that "there has been some buildup of radiation" in some of
the animals tested.[24]
Ironically some of those animals had drunk {upstream} of the spill,
indicating the stream--fed by water pumped out of the uranium mines--
may well have been contaminated even before the accident.
Soon after the dam break, two West German radiation biologists,
Bernd Franke and Barbara Steinhilber-Schwab, sharply criticized the
CDC report for downplaying the potential dangers of the accident and
for sampling too few of the local livestock. They urged chromosome
checks on area residents and called for the establishment of cancer
and birth registries as well as intense ongoing radiation monitoring
in the area. They also warned that thorium and other isotopes from
the spill could enter the human body not only through eating
contaminated animals, but also when radioactive dust settled on
vegetables.[25]
Dr. Carl Johnson, director of Colorado's Jefferson County Health
Department, further warned that detectable radiation levels in the
tissues of children might only surface "over a period of many years."
Dangerous levels of thorium, radium, and other isotopes could build up
through the ingestion of contaminated food, air, and water. Thus he
too urged careful monitoring of local children, plus a shutdown of the
mines and mills until the public had determined that "a satisfactory
method for preventing a subsequent incident" had been found.[26]
But the UNC mine and mill were back in operation in less than five
months. The same pond was in use. Some changes were made in the dam,
but constant seepage--up to eighty thousand gallons of contaminated
liquid per day--had become a mainstay.[27]
UNC had promised to provide local residents and their animals with
clean drinking water. But an Arizona newspaper confirmed that the
company was delivering just half the promised amounts.[28] A request
by some of the downstream residents for emergency food stamps to
replace their lost livestock was denied by the government.
And at least one family was forced to eat a sheep known to have
ingested radioactive residues. "If you come to Lupton, you will see a
lot of shepherds running along the side of the wash trying to keep the
sheep out," said Navajo shepherd Tom Charlie.
The UNC had put up signs saying "contaminated wash, keep out. But
our cows, sheep and horses can't read that. Most of us can't read,
write or speak English. The signs do no good. If [neighbors] know we
are from the Rio Puerco wash, they won't shake our hands," he added.
"They think we have a high level of radiation. They ran from me.
They are afraid of us. That's why people look at us, that's why no
one comes to help us. It is wet now, but on days when it dries up,
the wind will come along. The dust settles on the grass. The sheep
eat it. We eat the sheep. We wonder what that does to our
lives."[29]
------
14. Ibid., pp. 120-121.
15. Swanson interview.
16. Paul Robinson, interview, February 1981; and Shuey, "Calamity," Part 2,
February 21, 1981, p. 5.
17. Jorge Winterer, interview, October 1980.
18. Jorge Winterer, {Potential Health Impact of United Nuclear-Church Rock
Spill} (Gallup, N.M.: Physicians for Social Responsibility: fall
1979).
19. {Church Rock Hearings}, pp. 9-11.
20. Winterer interview.
21. {Church Rock Hearings}, pp. 9-11.
22. Allan Shauffler, interviewed for {In Our Own Back Yard}.
23. {Albuquerque Journal}, July 17, 1980.
24. {Gallup Independent}, June 16, 1980.
25. Bernd Franke and Barbara Steinhilber-Schwab, press statement,
Albuquerque International Airport, Albuquerque, N.M., July 24, 1980.
The question of contamination in local humans did come up when seven
local residents were sent to Los Alamos for testing. Seven months
later reports indicated no contamination. But it was soon discovered
that the equipment used to measure the radiation levels was not capable
of recording small doses--doses that were nonetheless large enough to
do harm. See Shuey, "Calamity," Part 2, pp. 5-6.
26. Carl Johnson, letter to Lynda Taylor, July 14, 1980.
27. Robinson interview.
28. Shuey, "Calamity," Part 2, p. 6.
29. Saltzstein, "Navajos." In a July 1981 letter to authors, Edwin Swanson
said the state of Arizona asked UNC to post signs along the river as
far as Navajo, Arizona, but that the company did not do it.
------
Tailings Forever
Church Rock was the biggest tailings spill on record, but it was not
the only one. And though the Navajo and other New Mexicans nearby
were the most directly affected, people as far away as Los Angeles had
cause for concern.
As Congressman Udall put it, Church Rock fit a pattern of "sloppy
and haphazard" handling of mill tailings throughout the nation. Other
spills, he said, had dumped "millions of gallons of hazardous liquids"
and jeopardized the water supply of much of the West.[30] In fact NRC
statistics acknowledged at least fifteen accidental releases of
tailings solution from 1959 to 1977, including seven dam breaks, six
pipeline failures, and two floods. In at least ten of the events
radioactivity reached a major watercourse.[31] One accident cited by
Udall sent twenty-five thousand gallons of slurry directly into the
Colorado River. A flood washed some fourteen thousand tons of
tailings directly into Utah's Green River.[32]
At Durango, Colorado, a huge hundred-foot-high tailings pile sits
just sixty feet from the Animas River, a tributary of the Colorado.
The state Department of Health has found abnormal radium levels in
water thirty miles downstream.[33] According to Washington-based
uranium expert David Berick operators of the Durango mill "just took
the residues and threw them in the river. There's really no way of
knowing how much of it went how far downstream."[34]
Because the milling process renders many of the isotopes in the
tailings highly soluble, they can be washed into streams and water
tables by rain. A 1979 Oak Ridge National Laboratory study noted
groundwater contamination at two New Mexico tailings piles.[35]
Company records admit to severe groundwater contamination at
Colorado's Uravan mill.[36] One tailings dam near Wyoming's
Sweetwater River failed six times between 1957 and 1979 and was
reporting a daily seepage rate of 1.7 million gallons.[37] And a
major 1976 EPA study indicated that some 200,000 kilograms of
dissolved uranium had been introduced to subsurface water by seepage
and "direct injection" at mills belonging to Anaconda and Kerr-McGee.
The study warned the problem was widespread: "The stark contrast
between a typical 20-year mill life and an 80,000-year half life for
the dominant radionuclide (thorium 230) necessitates a much greater
forward look than is now evident in waste disposal practices and
preservation of ground-water quality."[38]
Nor has the problem stayed underground. As early as 1964 the
Federal Water Pollution Control Administration told a congressional
hearing that fish caught downriver from the Naturita and Uravan
uranium mills showed higher radium concentrations than those caught
upriver. Downriver hay samples also showed contamination, as did
cows' milk. "In this case," said the authorities, "the prime source
of radium intake for the cows is believed to be from eating hay
irrigated with contaminated river water."[39]
As for Church Rock, Edwin Swanson, a water-quality expert for the
state of Arizona, told us traces of the spill--though dilute and
possibly undetectable--would eventually reach Arizona's Lake Mead, 470
miles downstream.[40]
And though most of America's uranium mills seem far removed from
major population centers, concern is growing for such crucial water
sources as Lake Mead, which supplies southern California, Las Vegas,
and parts of Arizona with much of their drinking water.
The huge reservoir sits downstream from numerous uranium mining and
milling operations. The distances are sometimes great, but so are the
half-lives of many of the isotopes slowly making their way downriver.
As early as 1972, H. Peter Metzger, writing in {The Atomic
Establishment}, warned that bottom sediments in Lake Mead were showing
three times the concentration of radium as similar sediment samples
taken upstream of the uranium mills.[41]
The implications of a contaminated Lake Mead, and of a radioactive
western water system, are catastrophic. But the uranium problem
involves an immense volume of tailings and is not limited just to
water quality.
According to the Government Accounting Office (GAO) at least
twenty-two uranium mills had shut down on the continental United
States by 1978. They left behind some twenty-five million tons of
tailings in "unattended piles and ponds" in eight western states plus
Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Another sixteen mills were in operation,
with an additional 115 million tons on site--bringing the total to 140
million tons. In the early 1980s another six to ten million tons of
tailings were being produced per year. Based on high growth
estimates, the NRC in 1981 predicted another 109 mills could be
operating by the year 2000 producing 470 million more tons of tailings
and scores of acid ponds like the one at Church Rock.[42] One
estimate from Los Alamos Laboratory put the total far higher,
predicting 900 million tons of tailings by the year 2000 in New Mexico
alone.[43] Such a total would involve some twenty trillion cubic feet
of tailings.
And the piles threaten air as well as water, a problem considered by
many experts--including NRC Commissioner Gilinsky--even more serious
than the better-known "high-level" wastes from reactors and bomb
factories. The reason is radon gas, the same deadly substance that
has caused a five-fold increase in lung cancer among uranium miners.
Because radon is a gas, it is possible, as Gilinsky said, "for large
populations thousands of miles away from the source to be exposed,
albeit to an extremely low dose."[44]
In fact the NRC has attempted to present long-term calculations for
New Mexico tailings-gas emission levels in such distant locations as
Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Washington, D.C., and New York City.[45]
NRC staff member Reginald Gotchy told us that despite its short half-
life (3.8 days) radon gas from a tailings pile in New Mexico can carry
to the East Coast of the United States. On its way contamination
would appear "on grain grown in the Midwest" and elsewhere. "This
stuff," he said, "goes everywhere." Gotchy hastened to add that he
and the NRC consider the doses "minuscule."[46]
But in 1977 Dr. Chauncy Kepford, a chemist based in State College,
Pennsylvania, testified during hearings on the license for Three Mile
Island Unit 2 (which caused the 1979 accident) that the quantity and
health effects of radon tailings emissions had been vastly
underestimated. Kepford stated that the NRC had failed to account for
continued emissions over the full decay chains of the elements
involved. Assuming a stable human population and society, he
estimated that tailings from the fuel needed to operate TMI-2 for just
one year could cause a million cancer cases over time.[47]
In 1978 Dr. William Lochstet of Pennsylvania State University argued
that the operation of a single uranium mine could result in 8.5
million deaths over time.[48] And Dr. Robert O. Pohl of Cornell told
the NRC that the potential health effects from mill tailings could
"completely dwarf" those from the rest of the nuclear fuel cycle and
add significantly to the worldwide toll of death and mutations.[49]
The essence of those conclusions was substantiated, surprisingly,
from within the Nuclear Regulatory Commission itself. In the fall of
1977 Dr. Walter H. Jordan of the commission's Atomic Safety and
Licensing Board wrote an internal memorandum arguing that the NRC "had
underestimated radon emissions from tailings piles by a factor of
100,000."
Because of the long half-lives of the isotopes in the solid
tailings, radiation will continue to be emitted from the tailings
piles for billions of years. Said Jordan: "It is very difficult to
argue that deaths to future generations are unimportant."[50]
In estimating the long-term effects of radon gases, the NRC assumed
the tailings piles would be covered with dirt. The belief is that
covering the piles will trap the gas and force it--after its
relatively short half-life--to deposit its radioactive "daughters" in
the form of less mobile solids.
But questions have been raised about how long dirt covering the
piles would last through the millennia the tailings will be
radioactive. Or if the piles can actually be covered at all. In some
instances they are a hundred feet high and more, and cover hundreds of
acres of ground. Huge strip-mining operations would be required just
to get enough soil to do the job.[51]
The NRC has also considered returning the tailings to the mines from
which they came. In some instances the procedure may be viable. But
many workers would be contaminated in the process, and much fuel
consumed. One estimate for removing the Durango tailings involves
65,860 trips with twenty-five-ton dump trucks. Returning the 140
million tons of tailings now lying around the U.S. would require more
than 5.5 million such truck trips.[52]
In the meantime NRC Commissioner Gilinsky has warned that "none of
the abandoned sites can be considered to be in satisfactory condition
from the long-term standpoint."[53] In fact most of the piles
continue to lie exposed to the winds and rain. Residents of Durango,
Colorado, have experienced plumes of dust towering thousands of feet
in the air, covering cars and houses with radioactive dust. Children
have played in the "dunes." The piles were "the biggest, best
sandpile in the world," Greta Highland of Durango told the {High
Country News}. "After school my friends would sneak into the mill
yard and play in the tailings."[54]
But the consequences may be lethal. High levels of background
radiation from thorium, for example, have been linked to spontaneous
abortion and mental retardation.[55] Leukemia and lung-cancer rates
in south Durango, near the piles, have been reported higher than the
rest of the town and the state.[56]
And Monticello, Utah (population: 1900), has also reported problems.
From 1949 to 1960 the town hosted a large uranium mill, which
processed weapons material for the AEC. In the mid-1960s four young
residents died of leukemia. A fifth began a long battle against it.
In a normal town Monticello's size just one case would be expected
every twenty-five years.
A preliminary study by the Center for Disease Control concluded that
"there appears to be no relationship" between the mill and the
leukemias. But the authors conceded that such a high leukemia
incidence "would be expected to occur in fewer than one of 1,000 towns
this size or smaller during the same period of time." The report also
said that gamma readings at the perimeter of the tailings areas
"ranged up to twenty times background" and that "a nuisance and
possibly a hazard also existed due to blowing of the tailings as they
dried out."[57] All five of the young victims had grown up within a
half mile of the mill. "For a place this small, it had to be
something," said Dale Maughan, whose son Alan died of leukemia in
1966, at age sixteen.[58]
The damage has not been limited to humans. Farmers near the Cotter
mill at Canon City, Colorado, have also complained of unexplained
problems with their animals, problems reminiscent of those reported by
Lloyd Mixon at Rocky Flats. Local residents Clarence Ransome and
Wanda Bosco told us the illnesses among their livestock included
diarrhea, weight loss, hair falling out, and difficulties in
reproduction. Tests discovered contamination in at least one local
well and in alfalfa being raised nearby. Bosco told us the problems
with her animals disappeared when they were given uncontaminated water
trucked in from town.[59]
The presence of uranium mining and milling has also been linked to
high birth-defect rates in the states of New Mexico, Arizona,
Colorado, and Utah. Overall conclusions are tenuous, complicated by a
wide range of social and environmental factors. But Dr. Alan Goodman,
director of Program Development for the Area Health Education Center
at the University of New Mexico's School of Medicine, has cited "a
disturbing pattern" of sex ratio changes and birth defects that
correspond to "the same patterns of uranium mining and milling on the
Colorado Plateau. I'm not saying that they are caused by uranium, but
one would have to be a fool not to see that there is a possibility
that they are related."[60]
Particular attention has been focused on the twenty-thousand-person
community of Shiprock, New Mexico, where an abandoned 1.7-million-ton
tailings pile covers seventy-two acres in the heart of town.
According to Dr. Leon Gottleib, a pulmonary specialist long associated
with the Indian Health Service, during the rainy season, water
leaching through the tailings pile carries radioactive particles into
the nearby San Juan River. "Children swim in the contaminated river;
cattle drink from the river; and contaminated fish inhabit these
waters," he told us in a letter. In windstorms, radioactive particles
are blown into school and residential areas, as well as onto grazing
and garden land.
In January 1981 Dr. Evelyn Odin, a Shiprock pediatrician, told {The
Albuquerque Tribune} that she had been disturbed by the number of
babies being born prematurely with small heads. One child, she said,
was born with its esophagus and trachea joined together; another was
born without an abdominal wall and with its intestines hanging out.
Dr. John Ogle, also of Shiprock, hesitated to blame the defects on
radiation. But he told the {Tribune} that "my gut feeling is that the
incidence here is too high." Ogle said in six months he had seen
three infants born with heart diseases two with cleft lips and
palates, two with skull defects, two with Down's syndrome one with a
section of backbone missing, and several with thyroid conditions.[61]
A study by Sarah Harvey, director of the Community Health
Representative Program, found a doubling of spontaneous abortions,
stillbirths, and congenital abnormalities among children of uranium-
mining families as opposed to nonminers. Her survey has formed the
basis for an investigation of the area partially funded by the March
of Dimes.[62]
Problems in the Shiprock area may be compounded by the fact that
numerous local residents have built their homes with radioactive rock
from the mines, or with tailings from the mills. The use of tailings
as a building material was widespread throughout the 1950s and early
1960s. Despite repeated warnings from independent experts, the AEC
did not investigate the possibility that such use of tailings could
harm people.[63]
The carelessness has had a direct cost. In Grand Junction,
Colorado, more than six thousand structures--including several
schools--are now known to have tailings deposits in the building
materials or in the landfill under them. Streets and sidewalks were
also laid with them. In all at least 270,000 tons of tailings were
used, resulting in dangerous radiation levels in many Grand Junction
houses. A state- and federal-funded program that has thus far cost
taxpayers at least $6.5 million has brought "remedial action" to only
seven hundred sites. Costs have been estimated at fifteen thousand
dollars per home and seventy-five thousand dollars per commercial
building.[64]
For some the cleanup may have come late. A 1978 study by the state
of Colorado indicated cancer rates in Mesa County, where Grand
Junction is the prime population center, showed an acute leukemia rate
twice the state average. More women were suffering from the disease
than men, an indication of radiation poisoning.[65]
At Edgemont, South Dakota, an EPA study found sixty-four "hot spots"
related to a nearby tailings pile.[66] In 1978 the Neil Brafford
family was forced to abandon their home there when they learned it had
been built on tailings. The basement in which their young son Chris
lived showed radiation levels thirty-nine times normal background.
Brafford had bought the house from a mill worker and only later
discovered tailings had been used as backfill. "We don't know how
much he used," Brafford explained, "but we do know that we're never
going to live here again."[67]
When they moved out, Brafford's young daughter stopped suffering
from a long bout of diarrhea, which had begun when the family moved
in. Laboratory tests showed that young Chris Brafford had broken
chromosomes. He was also suffering from aching bones, a symptom of
potential leukemia. In May of 1981 the Braffords filed a forty-
million-dollar lawsuit against the Susquehanna Corporation, owners of
the nearby tailings pile.[68]
------
30. {Church Rock Hearings}, p. 1.
31. Ibid., p. 9.
32. William Sweet, "Unresolved: The Front End of Nuclear Waste Disposal,"
{Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists}, May 1979, p. 45
33. Jack Miller, "Environmental and Health Effects," Uranium Information
Network, unpublished. For this finding Miller cites the Colorado
Department of Health, {Uranium Wastes and Colorado's Environment},
second edition (Denver: Colorado Department of Health, August 1971 ),
p. 10.
34. David Berick, interview, March 1981.
35. D. G. Jacobs and H. W. Dickson, {A Description of Radiological Problems
at Inactive Uranium Mill Sites and Formerly Utilized MED/AEC Sites}
(Oak Ridge, Tenn.: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, February 1979), p. 5.
36. {High Country News}, February 22, 1980, p. 1.
37. Ibid., December 14, 1979, p. 10.
38. Robert F. Kaufman, et al., "Effects of Uranium Mining and Milling on
Ground Water in the Grants Mineral Belt, New Mexico," {Ground Water}
14, No. 5 (September-October 1976). See also, EPA {Radioactivity in
Drinking Water}, EPA #570/9-81-002 (Washington, D.C.: EPA, January
1981).
39. U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Public Works, Subcommittee on Air
and Water Pollution, {Radioactive Water Pollution in the Colorado River
Basin}, 89th Congress, May 6, 1966, pp. 101-104.
40. Swanson interview.
41. Metzger, {Atomic Establishment}, p. 164. For this information Metzger
cites: DHEW, U.S. PHS, {Waste Guide for the Uranium Milling Industry},
Technical Report W62-12 (Cincinnati: PHS, 1962); PHS, Region VIII,
{Radiological Content of Colorado River Basin Bottom Sedimentation},
Report PR-10 (Denver: PHS, June 1963); and {Radioactivity in Water
and Sediments of the Colorado River Basin, 1950-1963}, Radiological
Health Data and Reports (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office,
November 1964).
42. GAO, {The Uranium Mill Tailings Cleanup: Federal Leadership At Last?},
EMD-78-90, (Washington, D.C.: GAO, June 1978) (hereafter cited as
{Tailings Leadership}); and, NRC, {Final General Environmental Impact
Statement on Uranium Milling}, Vol 1, NUREG-0706 (Washington, D.C.:
NRC Office of Material Safety and Safeguards, September 1980), pp. 3-15
(hereafter cited as {GEIS-Milling}). See also, GAO, {The U.S. Mining
and Mineral-Processing Industry: An Analysis of Trends and
Implications}, ID-80-04 (Washington, D.C.: GAO, October 1979).
43. David R. Dreesen, {Uranium Mill Tailings: Environmental Implications},
LASL 77-37 (Los Alamos, N.M.: Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory,
February 1978).
44. Gilinsky, "Problem," p. 2.
45. NRC, {Radon Releases from Uranium Mining and Milling and Their
Calculated Health Effects}, NUREG-0757 (Washington, D.C.: Office of
Material Safety and Safeguards, February 1981), p. 7-3 (hereafter cited
as {Radon 0757}).
46. Reginald Gotchy, interview, April 1981.
47. Chauncy Kepford, {Comments on NUREG-00332} (State College, Pa.:
Environmental Coalition on Nuclear Power, 1977), p. 8; and Chauncy
Kepford, interview, June 1981.
48. William Lochstet, "Radiological Impact of the Proposed Crownpoint
Uranium Mining Project," August 1978, unpublished manuscript.
49. Robert O. Pohl, "In the Matter of Public Service Company of Oklahoma,
Associated Electric Coop., Inc. and Western Farmers Coop., Inc. (Black
Fox Station Units 1 and 2," testimony before the Atomic Safety and
Licensing Board, Docket Nos. STN 50-556 and STN 50-557.
50. Walter Jordan, "Errors in 10 CFR Section 51.20, Table S-3," memorandum
to James R. Yore, NRC, September 21, 1977; and Walter Jordan, letter
to Congressman Clifford Allen, December 9, 1977.
51. NRC, {Radon 0757}, p. 4-7.
52. {High Country News}, May 16, 1980, p. 6.
53. Gilinsky, "Problem," p. 5.
54. {High Country News}, May 16, 1980, p. 6.
55. N. Kochupillai, et al., "Down's Syndrome and Related Abnormalities in
an Area of High Background Radiation in Coastal Kerala," {Nature} 262
(July 1, 1976): 60-61.
56. {High Country News}, May 16, 1980, p. 6.
57. Peter McPhedran and John R. Crowell, "Leukemia in Monticello, Utah,"
EPI-67-48-2, Memorandum to the Director, National Communicable Disease
Center, Atlanta, July 5, 1967. See also, John R. Crowell and Clark W.
Heath, Jr., "Leukemia in Parowan and Paragonah, Utah," EPI-67-70-2,
memorandum to the Director, National Communicable Disease Center,
Atlanta, April 26, 1967. In a June 1981 interview, Peter McPhedran
told us a more detailed study of Monticello "looked like a good idea,
but nobody asked us to pursue it any further." As a result, he said,
the study was dropped. Area drinking water had not been studied.
58. Bill Curry, "Small Utah Town, 4 Leukemia Deaths," {Washington Post},
July 16, 1978. In a March 1981 interview Alan Maughan's mother told us
she was certain the tailings piles had caused her son's death. Dr.
Carroll Goon, whom we also interviewed, said the large number of
leukemia cases surfacing at the same time did seem extraordinary, but
that there was no conclusive proof they had been caused by the
tailings. There has been, he said, "nothing like it since" in
Monticello.
59. "Bad Water Tough on Families," {Rocky Mountain News}, June 26, 1978,
p. 8; and Clarence Ransome and Wanda Bosco, interviews, June 1981.
60. Christopher McLeod, "Uranium Link: New Studies Reveal High Birth
Defect Rate in Southwest," Pacific News Service, April 1, 1981.
61. Burt Hubbard, "Navajos Build Radioactive Homes; Offspring May be
Bearing Burden," {Albuquerque Tribune}, January 27, 1981, p. A-2. The
problems in Shiprock were also confirmed by Dr. Leon Gottleib, who
worked in the area for many years, in an April 1981 interview and in an
August 23, 1981 letter.
62. Lynda Taylor, Southwest Research Institute, interview, June 1981.
63. Metzger, {Atomic Establishment}, p. 164.
64. GAO, {Tailings Leadership}, p. 8; and {GEIS-Milling}, p. 2-2. See
also, Joanne Omang, "EPA Proposes Rules for Cleaning Up Old Uranium
Mills' Radioactive Waste," {Washington Post}, April 17, 1980.
65. "Mesa County Leukemia, Cancer Incidences High," {Rocky Mountain News},
United Press International, March 2, 1978.
66. {High Country News}, April 4, 1980, p. 13.
67. Neil Brafford, interview, July 1980.
68. Andrew Reid, interview, March 1981. Reid is lead attorney in the
Braffords' lawsuit.
------
Canonsburg
Ironically one of the worst tailings problems occurred in a
community east of the Mississippi--Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, twenty
miles southwest of Pittsburgh. As early as 1911 the Standard Chemical
Company was importing carload after carload of radioactive ore from a
mine at Montrose, Colorado, to extract uranium. At the time, it took
about five hundred tons of ore to produce a single gram of radium--a
gram that sold for up to $150,000.
There were few questions asked. In 1914 company president Joseph M.
Flannery told a local newspaper that radium would cure "such things as
insanity, tuberculosis, rheumatism and anemia, and a lot of cancers."
Flannery and at least two other principals in the company eventually
died of radiation sickness.[69]
Standard Chemical and the companies that followed it quit the radium
business in Canonsburg in 1942. But by then the push was on to build
the atomic bomb. The government contracted in secret with the Vitro
Corporation to extract leftover uranium from the discarded ore.
When Vitro finished operations in the late fifties, it was ready to
go into the waste-storage business. At least 160,000 tons of
radioactive residues were strewn around Canonsburg, some of them
lining the bottom of a three-acre lagoon where local children
regularly waded in the summer and skated in the winter.
In the early sixties the AEC allowed the lagoon to be filled in with
tailings. It was an extraordinary decision, since--contrary to
regulations--the government did not own the site. Health physicist
Robert Gallagher, who performed a preliminary survey there, called the
move "incredible." He charged that the AEC approval was either "a
special favor or an oversight of gigantic magnitude."[70] As for the
fill job, Joseph Swiger, project manager for the dumping, termed it
"the worst and sloppiest job I've ever worked on." It was "morally
objectionable," he told {The Pittsburgh Press}, "because the material
was hazardous."[71]
In 1967 the site was sold for $130,000 to a local entrepreneur named
Vaughn Crile, who was never warned that there might be a radiation
problem. Crile built an industrial park on top of the tailings and
brought in fourteen tenants along with his family business. The DOE
surveyed the site in 1978 and found that the 125 workers there were
being exposed to radon concentrations fourteen times above the level
officially considered safe.[72]
The news was not well received by Crile's tenants. At least eight
had left by early 1981. Workers were hesitant to take jobs there, and
at least one claimed the place had ruined his health.
He was George Mahranus, a mechanic at the park for eight years, who
finally quit in fear. "Towards the end," he told us, "I could hardly
lift anything, couldn't pull on the wrenches. I got a soreness in my
joints. Most of my hair fell out. My front teeth came loose on me.
I never felt like this before in my life." Mahranus, who was in his
forties, spent most of his working days on the plant floor, fixing
tires and engines. "The radiation never occurred to me till they
started drilling at the site to test for it," he said. "Then I
decided to get the hell out of there." With just ten teeth left in
his mouth and an unexplained lump behind his ear, Mahranus was
apprehensive of doctors confirming his worst fears. "I do feel better
since I left there," he told us. "But now I can't sit long and my
fingertips go numb on me. I always did hard work. But now there's no
way for me to go out and put in eight hours. It would kill me."[73]
Park owner Vaughn Crile was skeptical of Mahranus's claims, but was
also deeply bitter toward the government, which he said had cost him
thousands of dollars. "They should relocate us, but they're so
ungodly slow," he complained.[74]
At least eighteen other radioactive "hot spots" were identified
around town including a ballfield and an American Legion park. A spot
near the lagoon registered five hundred times normal background
levels.
Some locals complained that their gardens would not grow; others
were warned not to eat the vegetables that did come up. A rain barrel
at one Canonsburg home showed radiation levels eight thousand times
background, while materials used to build one house registered 240
times the normal radium count. At least 150 homes were marked for
decontamination.[75]
But, as at Grand Junction, the cleanup orders may have been too
late. Epidemiologist Evelyn Talbott of the University of Pittsburgh
studied the area. She told us preliminary figures indicated a lung-
cancer rate twice normal among men over forty-five, and three times
normal among men over seventy.[76]
Informal studies indicate things may be even worse. Agnes Engel, a
mother of two in her late thirties and a lifelong resident, surveyed
150 of her neighbors. She found an astonishing fifty-three of them
complaining of thyroid problems. Like scores of other local children,
Engel had been drawn to the contaminated lagoon when she was young.
Before it was filled in, she told us, "there were cattails and frogs
there. It was an irresistible attraction."
But there had been no warning of the radioactive chemicals at the
lagoon's bottom. Engel has since suffered from multiple health
disorders including strange bleeding problems, a thyroid condition at
age seventeen, a minimally brain-damaged son, a hysterectomy at
thirty-five. "My two sisters have also had similar problems," she
told us. "And there are so many other women here who've had them . .
. so many strange things. . . . "[77]
------
69. Ben A. Franklin, "U.S. Testing Workers for Effects of 13 Years Amid
Atomic Wastes" {New York Times}, May 5, 1979, p. A-1.
70. {Pittsburgh Press}, January 23, 1980, p. C-1.
71. Ibid., January 21, 1980, p. A-8.
72. Franklin, "U.S. Testing Workers."
73. George Mahranus, interview, April 1981. See also, Albert Neri,
"Radioactive Park Site Has Mechanic `Scared,'" {Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette}, March 19, 1979.
74. Vaughn Crile, interview, April 1981.
75. {Pittsburgh Press}, March 2, 1979, and June 22, 1980, p. A-10.
76. Evelyn Talbott, interview, October 1980. See also, {Pittsburgh Press},
July 30, 1980, p. B-3.
77. Agnes Engel, interview, October 1980. See also, {Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette}, March 19, 1979; and Agnes Engel, {Residential Research
Survey of Thyroid Disorders} (Strabane, Pa.: U.C.A.R.E., March 21,
1979).
------
* * * * * * *
[part 11 of 18]
10
Tritium in Tucson, Wastes Worldwide
Like Agnes Engel of Canonsburg, Tom Charlie downriver from Church
Rock, and the Haag and Mixon families near Rocky Flats, radiation has
affected the life of Rita Linzy. A mother of two and a lifelong
resident of Tucson, Linzy knew little of the intricacies of atomic
power until one of her near neighbors accidentally leaked radioactive
tritium, introducing it into food being served to forty thousand local
schoolchildren. It happened in the summer of 1979. During the
incident--which Linzy called "our Three Mile Island"--her hair fell
out and scores of her neighbors began wondering if their health had
been damaged.[1]
The source of the contamination was American Atomics, a ten-
million-dollar-a-year operation employing some two hundred workers in
midtown Tucson. The company made a business of buying tritium from
the federal weapons program and inserting it into thin glass slivers
used in digital watches. The tritium makes the slivers glow without
electricity.
As it functioned quietly in Tucson, American Atomics was just one of
seventeen thousand medical, academic, industrial, and military
organizations licensed to handle radioactive isotopes in the United
States. Those licensees range in size from megacorporations like
General Electric and Westinghouse to small colleges and hospitals that
handle tiny quantities of isotopes for research and medical
purposes.[2] Literally hundreds of millions of items containing some
quantity of radioactivity are produced in the U.S. each year,
including luminous timepieces, static eliminators, false teeth,
welding rods, eyeglasses, electron tubes, fluorescent lamp starters,
ceramic tableware, and some smoke detectors.[3]
Many of the factories that produce these items are legally permitted
to release large quantities of radiation in the course of normal
operations. Cobalt 60 fabrication plants, for example, are allowed to
expose the public to twenty times more radiation than a commercial
reactor.[4]
Many of the small radiation by-product plants are also located in
thickly populated areas. American Atomics sat just a few hundred
yards from a trailer park, a church, a day-care center, a potato chip
warehouse, several homes, and the central kitchen for the Tucson
public school system. The plant regularly leaked large quantities of
tritium gas into the atmosphere--285,000 curies of it in 1978 alone,
according to company records. In September of that year a maintenance
worker opened the wrong valve and sent into the Tucson air a single
"puff" of twenty-one thousand curies, a sizable dose. The public was
not informed.[5]
But tritium can be deadly. A radioactive form of hydrogen, it has a
half-life of twelve years. Because it gives off relatively small
amounts of beta (electron) radiation, it is considered less dangerous
than many other isotopes. However tritium behaves chemically and
biochemically like ordinary hydrogen. When ingested, it can
incorporate itself into all forms of body cells, including those of
the reproductive system. Researchers theorize that because of its
ability to act like regular water, tritium can incorporate with the
DNA in living cells, multiplying the prospects for damage leading to
genetic mutations and cancer[6]
------
1. {Arizona Daily Star}, June 3, 1979.
2. Clair Miles, NRC, interview, February 1981.
3. Buckley, et al., {Environmental Assessment of Consumer Products
Containing Radioactive Material}, NUREG CR-1755 (Washington, D.C.:
NRC).
4. 10 Code of Federal Regulations, Part 40. As of December 1979 the
public exposure limit at "nuclear fuel cycle" facilities such as power
reactors and fabrication plants was set at twenty-five mrem. But the
limits at "by-product" facilities, waste dumps, weapons plants, and
certain industrial facilities was set twenty times higher--at five
hundred millirem.
5. {Arizona Daily Star}, April 15, 1979, and January 4, 1981.
6. H. Kasche, et al., "Dose Estimations for Tritium and C-14 Released in
the Nuclear Fuel Cycle--A Biological and Radiobiological Evaluation,"
University of Bremen, SAIU, available through Environmental Policy
Center.
------
Tritium in the Cake
In addition to tritium, at least one worker at American Atomics was
also contaminated with "hot" oil. Other workers charged the company
regularly falsified quality-control data and deliberately mislabeled
radioactive cargo to avoid air-freight restrictions. In all, the
company seemed a tragic throwback to the days of radium-dial
painting--a practice tritium slivers made obsolete.[7]
Finally, American Atomics employee Elaine Hunter blasted the company
in a letter printed in the local {Arizona Daily Star}. She was
quitting work at American Atomics, she said, "not in fear of
radioactivity," but "in disgust and anger that those greedy men were
making a fast buck while jeopardizing the physical and emotional
well-being of those involved with the fabrication of their product.[8]
Meanwhile plant neighbors complained of emission alarms that rang
constantly. In August of 1978 the Arizona Atomic Energy Commission
(AAEC) inspected American Atomics and warned of large losses of
tritium because of sloppy handling. The findings were delivered to
AAEC director Donald C. Gilbert, who let them sit on his desk for
seven months. The reason for the inaction, Gilbert later told {Daily
Star} reporter Jane Kay, was that he had been assured by Harry H.
Dooley, Jr., that the situation was being corrected. Dooley was an
AAEC commissioner--and a vice-president of American Atomics. The
obvious conflict of interest apparently bothered no one at the AAEC.
Only when Director Gilbert was fired in March of 1979 during a
commission shake-up did the report find its way to the public.[9]
Four days after Gilbert's departure AAEC inspector Lynn FitzRandolph
was sent to American Atomics. He cited the company with four counts
of violating state regulations, and recommended that the plant be
closed. The company was "out of control," FitzRandolph later
explained. "I came away with pretty good ideas the tritium was going
up the stacks and into the sewer." FitzRandolph was scorned at the
time by some of his scientific peers, who told him his demands for
strict enforcement were "ridiculous."[10]
But in the spring of 1979 the {Star} also reported the company had
been dumping radioactive liquid "down the drain," directly into the
city sewer system, without filtration or monitoring. American Atomics
replied that the total radioactive content was "very low."[11]
But routine tests in early June at the Tucson school system's
central kitchen, near the plant, found food with radiation counts 2.5
times above permissible levels. The kitchen regularly fed
approximately forty thousand students. Water in cake that had been
served to twenty-eight thousand pupils contained fifty-six thousand
picocuries per liter; federal standards allowed only twenty-thousand
picocuries. Vegetation outside the kitchen tested at levels thirty-
six times the legal limit. Radiation, said acting AAEC director
Kenneth Geiser, was "in the humidity in the air. Everywhere. And all
the time. Cake or bread left on a table gets kind of soggy; it picks
up moisture like a sponge--and tritium with it."
Tucson was shocked. The school board was soon forced to bury
seventeen thousand cases of food. In all some $300,000 in perishables
and $90,000 in canned goods were destroyed, at taxpayer expense.[12]
Meanwhile urine tests of people living near the plant revealed at
least six cases of abnormal levels of tritium. Six-year-old Tony
Bruckmeier tested at 89,100 picocuries per liter, a level termed by
Gail Schmidt of the Bureau of Radiation Health as "small but not
negligible."[13] Though federal officials emphasized the levels were
not likely to be harmful, local residents had their doubts. Mrs.
Gloria Mendoza, who had lived in the neighborhood more than a quarter
century, showed levels of 71,700 picocuries per liter. The AAEC, she
told the {Star}, "told us to see our own physicians or call the Health
Department. They told me it was nothing to be alarmed about. But
I've had blisters inside my mouth, and the doctors say they haven't
seen anything like it since World War II. It's all cracked and
constantly purplish red."
"They told us they were making little components," said Joe
Valenzuela, a grandfather and amateur gardener who lived in the same
house for thirty years. "They never said they were using radioactive
materials. No one knew. . . . The prevailing winds are south to
southwest, and we're right here," he continued. "We have no defense
against this. The employees work eight hours and wear coats and
gloves. But my wife is here 24 hours. What about her kitchen?"[14]
When news of the contamination became public, parents began
forbidding their children to come into the area--even to visit
grandparents. Neighbors began leaving fruit on trees they had tended
for years rather than risk eating radiation. Backyard swimming pools
were also abandoned when they showed high tritium levels--one with
413,000 picocuries per liter, twenty times EPA drinking standards.
But American Atomics continued to manufacture tritium slivers. "The
safeguards are there," said company president Peter J. Biehl. "The
performance here is super, and we're within the established standards.
If we were a safety hazard we'd shut down."[15]
They did. Faced with the possibility of an official hearing,
American Atomics surrendered its licenses to handle radioactive
materials. The Tucson City Council and Pima County had already voted
to deny the company permission to relocate within their borders.
The company then abandoned its factory, leaving behind tritium and
other contaminated wastes. A break-in, fear of fire, and other
problems at the deserted site brought on still more anger and anxiety
in Tucson. Finally, on September 26, Arizona governor Bruce Babbitt
used emergency powers to seize the leftover tritium. The American
Atomics experience, he said, had been "a complete failure of
regulation."[16] On September 28, six National Guardsmen packed
several hundred thousand tiny glass vials filled with tritium into
thirty-eight barrels and trucked them to a former military depot at
Flagstaff, where they were buried.
The experience left bitter memories in Tucson--and more. During the
height of the crisis health officials assured local residents any
ingested tritium would be eliminated from the human system in three to
six months.
But in the spring of 1981 a study of fifty former American Atomics
workers showed a majority with tritium levels still ten times above
normal. The ex-employees had not been exposed to high tritium
concentrations for at least twenty-one months.
Dr. Michael Gray of the Arizona Center for Occupational Safety and
Health reported that a survey showed a "long residency period in the
system of very low concentrations of tritium." Some of the workers,
he said, produced urine samples containing tritium levels twenty times
above normal. Rates of decay found in the survey suggested that
tritium "can reside in the body" not just for the three to six months
promised during the crisis, but "for up to ten years."[17]
That was bad news for the people of Tucson, who banned all
radioactive production from their town in the wake of the scandal.
"It never entered my mind that they would even think of putting a
plant in this area when they knew it could contaminate a
neighborhood," Rita Linzy told the {Star} at the height of the
American Atomics crisis. She was then suffering from an undiagnosed
ailment that left her feeling tired and feverish, and made her hair
fall out. Her dog's hair was also falling out.
When we interviewed her eighteen months later, she told us she was
feeling better, and that there was no firm evidence that her ailment-
-or her dog's--had been caused by radiation. But she was still
worried. "I don't know if the illness was from the plant or not," she
said. "If any damage was done, we won't know for twenty years. And
there won't be anything we can do about it."[18]
------
7. {Arizona Daily Star}, July 18 and July 20, 1979.
8. Elaine Hunter, letter to the {Arizona Daily Star}, April 15, 1979.
9. Jane Kay, {Arizona Daily Star}, interview, January 1981.
10. {Arizona Daily Star}, February 11, 1980, and October 4, 1979.
11. Ibid., May 14, 1979.
12. Ibid., June 2, 1979; and Associated Press, October 25, 1979, as seen
in {New York Times}, October 26, 1979.
13. Gail Schmidt, interview, June 1981. Dr. Schmidt told us that EPA
standards for tritium in drinking water are twenty thousand picocuries
per liter, constant intake of which could result in a whole-body dose
of four millirems a year. The NRC standard for tritium in urine among
nuclear workers is twenty-eight million picocuries per liter. Schmidt
calculated that if the tritium levels in Tony Bruckmeier's urine had
come from a single exposure, they would reflect a whole-body dose of
roughly 0.37 millirems. If they reflected a whole year's constant
exposure, Schmidt estimated the dose at roughly 8.9 millirems. In a
June 1981 interview Dr. Alan Moghissi, principal adviser for Radiation
and Hazardous Materials to the EPA's Office of Research and
Development, told us that if he were the parent of a child who had
suffered such exposure, he "would not be concerned." Moghissi, who
worked extensively on the Arizona Atomics case, said the highest
environmental doses were estimated at ten to seventeen millirems.
"There is no such thing as zero danger," he told us. But Tony
Bruckmeier's apparent dose was "comparable to what one would receive on
a round-trip air flight from New York to Tucson."
14. {Arizona Daily Star}, June 3, 1979, and June 12, 1979.
15. Ibid., April 15, 1979.
16. U.S. Congress, House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs,
Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, {Nuclear Regulatory
Commission's Agreement States Program}, 96th Cong., 1st sess., July 19,
1977, pp. 2-6 (hereafter cited as {Agreement States Hearings}).
17. {Arizona Daily Star}, March 5, 1981.
18. Ibid., June 3, 1979, and Rita Linzy, interview, January 1981.
------
A World of Waste
The closing of American Atomics in Tucson did not end the problems
it created. The leftover tritium had to be trucked to a burial
ground. Though no accidents marred that particular trip, other
shipments haven't fared so well. Every year the NRC and Department of
Transportation (DOT) log several thousand movements of radioactive
wastes, fuel, ore, medical isotopes, and the like over American roads,
rails, waterways, and airways. In 1979, when the American Atomics
tritium was moved to Flagstaff, 122 nuclear-related transport
accidents were reported, including at least seventeen that resulted in
environmental contamination.[19]
How many more went unreported remains unknown. But in November of
1980 the GAO warned that with DOT's "limited staffing and funding
resources" the agency could not "determine the extent of problems
involved in transporting hazardous materials" let alone solve
them.[20]
The problems seemed epidemic, from faulty vehicles and untrained
drivers to inadequate safeguards and sloppy packaging. Nevada's
governor Robert List, for example, complained to a 1979 House Interior
Committee hearing that "simple tape" had been used to seal a metal
container carrying liquid wastes from a Michigan reactor into his
state. The tape had been painted over to conceal the problem. But
the cask was dripping and may have contaminated roads for more than a
thousand miles. Three months earlier hospital wastes being trucked
into Nevada caught fire.[21]
These incidents and scores like it prompted List and the governors
of South Carolina and Washington to announce they would accept no more
low-level wastes into their states after 1987. Numerous municipal
governments--such as New York City--have banned the transport of
radioactive material through their streets altogether.
No such problems existed for the Tucson tritium, which got to its
burial ground under the aegis of a state emergency. But once there it
became part of a much bigger problem--the disposal of atomic wastes,
generally considered the Achilles' heel of the nuclear industry. The
issue has become so hard-fought that in 1980 the voters of Washington
State overwhelmingly approved a referendum to ban all further
shipments of radioactive waste into the state. And Ronald Reagan--
whose campaign platform included the strengthening of states' rights-
-instructed the federal Justice Department to overturn the act and
force the state to continue accepting radioactive wastes against its
will.[22] In June 1981 the federal district court in Seattle ruled
against the state.
What has people upset is an enormous and uncertain legacy of
permanently toxic and potentially explosive garbage. It comes from
two sources--the military and the commercial uses of the atom--and it
breaks into three categories--low-level, transuranics, and high-level
waste.
For three decades the weapons program was the principal source of
radioactive waste. With their plutonium-producing reactors, uranium
enrichment plants, bomb fabrication complexes, and research
laboratories, the armed forces by the late 1970s were producing some
seventy million gallons of high-level wastes per year, plus thousands
of cubic yards of less toxic low-level solid trash. The military also
had 460 buildings and sites in need of decontamination and, in many
cases, burial.[23]
Overall, as the 1980s began, the weapons program remained the
leading producer of radioactive wastes {by volume}. But because of
the extreme intensity of the poisons in a power reactor core, the
commercial nuclear program by 1977 had outstripped the military
program in its production of nuclear wastes by {quantity of
radioactivity}.[24] Both programs continue to produce both high-level
and low-level wastes.
The latter are low in radioactivity, low-emitter items like tools
and clothing contaminated during site work, test tubes, detergents,
worn-out machinery, experimental carcasses, and the like. One 1979
DOE estimate of the total quantity of this material put it in the
range of 2.5 million cubic meters, with 10 million cubic meters
predicted by the year 2000. Much of it so far has been stored in
metal barrels or dumped in trenches.[25]
In March of 1981, under the Reagan administration, the NRC "solved"
part of the low-level storage problem by allowing hospitals and
research institutions to simply burn their wastes in the open air or
dump them down drains leading into public sewer systems. Research
labs and hospitals regularly produce 200,000 to 400,000 gallons of
liquid wastes each year, plus large numbers of contaminated animal
carcasses and soiled equipment. Their radiation will now go directly
into the environment.[26]
This method of waste disposal is not new. Government figures
indicate that in the 1940s and 1950s the AEC dumped at least fifty
thousand barrels of wastes directly into the Atlantic and Pacific
oceans, and the Gulf of Mexico. Government officials claimed that the
barrels were dumped far from heavily populated areas on shore, and
that only a small number leaked once they hit bottom.
But testimony from military personnel and employees involved in the
actual operations indicate many thousands of additional barrels may
have been involved.[27] And a 1981 investigative report by {Mother
Jones} magazine indicated a very high percentage of those barrels were
leaking. In fact some of them had actually been shot with holes by
ships' captains when the barrels were slow to sink after being thrown
overboard.[28] Many of the barrels were also much closer to shore and
in shallower water than the government said. And as early as 1975 two
EPA scientists in a deep-diving submarine reported traces of
radioactive cesium leaking from containers dumped 120 miles off Ocean
City, Maryland. Fish caught at another site two hundred miles out
showed significant levels of radioactive americium in their
bodies.[29]
Divers at a dump site off San Francisco have found abnormal giant
sponges similar to ones growing near nuclear outtake pipes at reactors
in Japan. And a suppressed EPA report confirmed that small marine
life was feeding near numerous broken barrels; they could, in turn,
introduce the radioactivity into the ocean food chain.
The ocean dumping program was not limited to low-level wastes. In
1958 the military threw an entire atomic reactor vessel, containing
thirty thousand curies of radiation, into the Atlantic. It later
tried to retrieve the vessel, but could not find it.[30]
Both liquid and solid high-level wastes can be laced with plutonium,
thorium, radium, strontium, cesium, and a broad spectrum of other
dangerous isotopes. Many of them have long half-lives, are extremely
toxic, and, in some cases, explosive. With its half-life of 24,800
years, plutonium must be stored to virtual perfection for 248,000
years before scientists estimate it may be safe to handle. Thorium,
with its eighty-thousand-year half-life, will remain deadly even
longer.
In both cases ingestion of even minuscule particles can result in
cancer. And the storage of plutonium has become an even more pressing
issue because it can be made into bombs. Public fears that it might
be stolen and used by small nations or terrorist groups are well
justified, and have already prompted one major international incidence
of extreme violence--the June 1981 Israeli raid on an Iraqi reactor.
More--possibly worse--events of its kind seem inevitable.[31]
Thus far the U.S. military has stored the worst of its wastes at the
Hanford, INEL, and Savannah River sites. At each location there have
been disastrous contaminations of land and water. At Hanford at least
430,000 gallons of caustic liquids have leaked from storage tanks,
including 115,000 gallons over a single 50-day period in 1973. Though
the wastes must be safely contained for millennia, numerous tanks at
Hanford under ten years of age have leaked profusely.[32]
When a Hanford safety engineer named Stephen Stalos complained about
the problem to his superiors, he was told no public report would be
made because "such an admission would give bad publicity to the
nuclear industry." Another Hanford worker, Allen Wegle, warned in a
U.S. Senate hearing that radioactive liquids leaked at Hanford in the
1950s are "just reaching the Columbia River at this time."[33] Though
the speed with which Hanford contaminants are moving toward the
Columbia is a matter of some dispute, their long half-lives and the
quantities poured into the soil make their arrival there at some point
in the future a virtual certainty.
And if the Columbia is contaminated, the hundreds of thousands who
live along it and who eat fish from it will be put at serious risk.
Those who depend on the huge Snake River Aquifer, which has already
been contaminated with wastes from Idaho's Nuclear Engineering
Laboratory, have similar worries.[34]
Residents on and near the Savannah River, which has been
contaminated by the government's huge weapons and waste storage
facility at Aiken, South Carolina, are in the same position. Wastes
there are stored within thirty feet of a huge aquifer that underlies
parts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. One hundred eleven
waste accidents have been reported by the DOE at Aiken, and
approximately one thousand square miles around the plant have been
contaminated by plutonium from a weapons production reactor and
reprocessing plants there.[35]
At Hanford dust made radioactive by wastes dumped on the ground has
been carried by windstorms into the surrounding desert. Traces of
some contaminants have been found at a nearby schoolyard.
Contamination has also been detected in mice, snakes, wasp's nests,
and coyote trapped nearby.[36]
Leaks at Maxey Flats, Kentucky, have also proved devastating. Maxey
Flats handles "transuranic" wastes--materials contaminated by elements
such as plutonium, which have a higher atomic weight than uranium.
When it was first built, government officials assured local residents
that the Maxey Flats burial ground would retain all plutonium and
other dangerous isotopes on site forever. But in just ten years
detectable quantities of the two hundred pounds of plutonium there had
moved hundreds of meters. Tritium was found in streams three miles
away. The site was closed in the 1970s.[37]
So far numerous experiments with various means of disposing of rad-
wastes have been tried--all without proven success. In the wake of
such failure the official focus has been on downplaying the potential
dangers--especially in the case of commercial reactor waste. A
standard industry claim has been that the fuel for operating a one-
thousand-megawatt reactor for a year comes to about two cubic meters.
As a public-relations gimmick various utilities have handed out small
plastic pellets, which they compare to the size of each person's
yearly share.
But the comparisons are deceptive.
First, they ignore the fact that mining and milling the fuel for one
average reactor for one year will create roughly 180,000 metric tons
of uranium mill tailings--of the type that poured out of the Church
Rock dam, and that are sitting in piles throughout the West.
According to the NRC's Ross Scarano 1.6 metric tons of tailings occupy
a cubic meter of space. Those 180,000 metric tons of tailings created
to fuel a reactor for a year will occupy roughly 100,000 cubic meters
of space--a long way from the two cubic meters of "rear-end" wastes
advertised by the industry.[38]
As for those smaller volumes of "rear-end" wastes that come directly
from the reactors, they make up in intensity what they may lack in
size.
Longtime nuclear advocate Bernard Cohen, of Pittsburgh, argues that
those yearly rear-end wastes "would fit comfortably under a dining-
room table."[39]
But anyone eating at that table would have a hard time walking away.
The heat and radiation generated by spent fuel demand that it be
diluted and spaced apart to avoid a chain reaction. Dr. Marvin
Resnikoff of the State University of New York at Buffalo estimates
those "two cubic meters" would require ten thousand times that much
space for safe storage. Any "dining-room table" they'd fit under
would need a top the size of a football field and legs ten feet
high.[40]
At West Valley, New York, an attempt at commercial reprocessing of
spent fuel has left a radioactive legacy that may eventually cost
state and federal taxpayers $1.5 billion to clean up--if it can be
done at all.[41] In addition to trenches of high-level wastes a
"toxic stew" of 560,000 gallons of cesium, strontium, plutonium, and
other isotopes is sitting in a leaking tank there. At one point so
much potent residue settled out of the liquid that some experts feared
it might eat through the vat, releasing large quantities of high-level
radiation.[42]
Nearby farmers may already have felt the effects of West Valley's
operations. Floyd Zell, who keeps 130 Holsteins four miles east of
the plant, told us that while it operated, his dairy herd experienced
breeding problems, and that a number of calves were born with
deformities he has not seen since the plant shut in 1972. Several he
described as "grotesque monsters," including one born blind with its
front legs bowed "like it was straddling a barrel." Another came into
the world with its tail protruding from the midback, directly opposite
the umbilical cord. "Underneath the tail," said Zell, "was the rectum
and vulva. Then, down the spinal column, its two hind legs were real
miniature, about half the size they should have been. They were
tucked way under."[43]
Emil Zimmerman, who keeps seventy Brown Swiss cows one mile east of
the plant, charged that fallout from West Valley "took twenty-five
hundred dollars per year out of my pocket" while the plant operated.
A father of three who has worked the same farm since 1943, Zimmerman
said that when West Valley began operations, he was getting a 45 to 50
percent "first service" success rate with artificial insemination of
his cows. The last three years it operated the rate dropped to 35
percent, but then jumped to 65 to 75 percent after it shut. Zimmerman
said his cows' abortion rate doubled after the plant opened, then
dropped back to normal after it closed. He also blamed the
reprocessing center for the birth of several "monster calves," some
abnormally large, some whose bones "literally fell apart." The
problems peaked in the early 1970s, he said, then declined to the
point where, in the last few years, he has had no abnormal births at
all.[44]
Nuclear Fuel Services, a subsidiary of Getty Oil, owns West Valley.
It refuses to accept the burden of cleaning it up. In the fall of
1980 President Carter signed a bill authorizing $300 million in tax
money to begin the job. It probably will not be enough.
Other commercial reprocessing and storage sites at Morris, Illinois,
and Barnwell, South Carolina, have also been costly failures. And
without reprocessing of fuel, or proven storage sites, atomic wastes
are backing up at reactor sites all across the U.S. As a result
scores of spent fuel assemblies are now being stored in "swimming
pools" at the plants. In some cases operators have obtained
permission to stack in three times as many fuel assemblies as the
pools were originally designed to hold. By inserting control rods and
lacing the liquids with neutron-absorbing boron, reactor operators
contend they can store the spent fuel safely.
But any geological disruption or structural failure or cooling
system breakdown could cause a catastrophic radiation release. There
are those who believe the pools themselves are at least as dangerous
as the reactors nearby.[45]
Near Lewiston, New York, there are those who believe rad-wastes have
already begun to take their human toll. Lewiston was the site of the
Lake Ontario Ordnance Works, a military facility. It is sixty miles
from West Valley and just ten from the infamous Love Canal.
Between 1944 and 1950 the operators of the ordnance works left
20,489 tons of radioactive waste--most of it from the Manhattan
Project--strewn around a fifteen-hundred-acre site. Some of the
wastes were packed into a reinforced concrete water silo, making it
one of the world's most concentrated deposits of radium. But eight
thousand tons were also just dumped on the ground, exposed to the
elements and likely to be washed into nearby creeks, three of which
empty into Lake Ontario.
The Department of the Interior has also confirmed that during the
course of plant operations, radioactive liquids were intentionally
spilled on the ground after storage tanks were full. "There is no
question the material was handled just like any other ore," the DOE's
Robert Ramsey told {The New York Times}. "There was just very little
regard given to the fact that it was radioactive."[46] Similar
attitudes were also in force at a Manhattan Project site in nearby
Tonawanda where some thirty-seven million gallons of radioactive
chemical wastes were dumped into unmonitored wells.[47]
In early 1981 a report from the New York State Assembly cited "an
incredible occasionally surreal history of federal mismanagement" at
Lewiston and other toxic dump sites in the area. The mismanagement at
Lewiston was "manifested by sloppy and deficient record-keeping
procedures, inadequate mapping of buried wastes, and technological
primitivism. . . ." Because of high rainfall and poor drainage, it
was "clear that the [Lewiston] site should never have been chosen for
the storage of radioactive materials in the first place." Federal
officials knew of the problems, but "ignored them."
The key determinants of the program were "expediency and economy,"
and it featured "the dumping of radioactive wastes in open and often
unmapped pits in rusting barrels stacked along the roadside, and in
inadequate structures originally designed for different purposes.
Inevitably these practices and others resulted in the contamination of
the . . . site and in the leaching of radioactive contaminants off the
site and onto land outside the control of the Federal Government."[48]
And, in fact, spot readings at the site showed radiation levels one
thousand times above normal.[49]
No official health studies have been done on the area. But informal
surveys by local citizens have indicated a frightening aftermath. Dr.
Resnikoff reported finding fifteen deformities among twenty deer
captured near local dump sites. Initial autopsies of some of them
indicated high levels of radium and cesium in their livers.[50]
A local reverend noted twelve new cases of cancer among his eight-
hundred-member congregation in the last three months of 1979. And a
survey by local resident Donna Srock of eleven households on a street
bordering the former ordnance works uncovered nineteen cases of major
illness, including respiratory ailments, blood disease, and
cancer.[51]
Nearby dump sites also host large quantities of high-level toxic
chemicals, so few people in the area believe their health problems are
strictly attributable to radiation. But few doubt its lethal
contribution. "I think that place is an obscenity," Lewiston resident
Danielle DeGolier told us. Of seventy-one people in the immediate
vicinity, she said, thirty-three had cancer. Eleven homes in the near
periphery reported nine cases of cancer. The nearby elementary school
had already suffered four cases of childhood leukemia.
"The World Health Organization says eighty to ninety percent of
cancers are environmentally induced," DeGolier told us. "We've got
radiation here and every other pollution you can think of. Ten years
from now, this place will make Love Canal look like a drop in the
bucket."[52]
------
19. "Nuclear Shipments: Accidents on the Rise," {The Guardian}, December
3, 1980.
20. GAO, {Programs for Insuring the Safe Transport of Hazardous Material
Need Improvement}, CED/81-5 (Washington, D.C.: GAO, November 4, 1980).
21. {Agreement States Hearings}, pp. 6-12.
22. "U.S. Disputes Washington State Law on A-Waste," {Washington Post},
Associated Press, April 14, 1980.
23. Marvin Resnikoff, "Nuclear Wastes--The Myths and the Realities,"
{Sierra}, July/August 1980, p. 32 (hereafter cited as "Realities").
24. Ibid.
25. DOE, {Spent Fuel and Waste Inventories and Projections}, ORO-778 (Oak
Ridge, Tenn.: Oak Ridge Operations Office, August 1980), p. 6
(hereafter cited as {Spent Fuel}).
26. Environmental Policy Center, "Biomedical Waste Disposal Regulations
Adopted," in {Radioactive Readings} 2, No. 4 (March 20, 1981).
27. Barry Hagar, Chief Counsel, Subcommittee on Environment, Energy and
Natural Resources, of the U.S. House Government Operations Committee,
interview, February 1981; and Douglas Foster, "You Are What They Eat,"
{Mother Jones}, July 1981.
28. Ibid.
29. "Pilot Recalls Navy Sank Nuke Waste," {Sacramento Journal}, Associated
Press, January 3, 1981, p. 12.
30. Foster, "You Are What They Eat."
31. It was the potential of using plutonium in bombs that prompted the
Carter administration to prohibit the export of reprocessing
technology. With characteristic inconsistency Carter continued to
promote the sale of reactors at the same time, thus making the
production of more plutonium inevitable anyway. In 1975, at the trial
of community activist Sam Lovejoy, who toppled a weather tower in
Montague, Massachusetts, to help stop a nuclear project, Dr. John
Gofman asked in reference to the plutonium question: "Is there
anything you'd like to guarantee will be done 99.9999% perfectly
forever?" From Green Mountain Post Films, {Lovejoy 's Nuclear War},
Turners Falls, MA., 1975.
32. {Seattle Post-Intelligencer}, June 15, 1979, p. 1.
33. U.S. Congress, Senate Subcommittee on Environment and Public Works,
96th Cong. 1st sess., September 11 and December 11, 1979, Serial
#96-H27, p. 210.
34. Lonnie Rosenwald and Rod Gramer, "So What if the Water's Nuked?"
{Progressive}, October 1980; and J. B. Robertson, et al., {The
Influence of Liquid Waste Disposal on the Geochemistry of Water at the
National Reactor Testing Station, Idaho. 1952-1970}, UC-70 (U.S.
Geological Survey, 1970); and Barraclough, {Hydrology.}
35. Alvarez, {Savannah River Study}.
36. {Seattle Post-Intelligencer}, May 3, and June 15, 1979.
37. Marvin Resnikoff, {West Valley: A Challenge for the 80's} (Buffalo:
Sierra Club Radioactive Waste Campaign, Box 64, Station G, Buffalo, NY
12224).
38. Ross Scarano, NRC, interview, July 1981.
39. Bernard Cohen, "The Disposal of Radioactive Wastes from Fission
Reactors," {Scientific American} 236 No. 6 (1977): 21. Dr. Cohen has
one of the most active scientific imaginations on the nuclear scene.
See also, "The Role of Radon in Comparisons of Effects of Radioactivity
Releases from Nuclear Power, Coal Burning and Phosphate Mining,"
{Health Physics Journal} 40, No. 1 (January 1981): pp. 19-27.
40. Resnikoff, "Realities."
41. Marvin Resnikoff, interview, June 1981. Dr. Resnikoff told us costs
for waste solidification at West Valley are estimated at $385 million,
and for exhuming the low-level burial grounds there at $1 billion. To
recoup some of the costs the state of New York has sued Nuclear Fuel
Services and Getty Oil. See {NYSERDA v. NFS and Getty Oil}, Civ.
81-18E, Western District of Federal District Court, New York.
42. Minna Hamilton, Sierra Club, interview, May 1981.
43. Floyd Zell, interview, June 1981.
44. Emil Zimmerman, interview, June 1981.
45. In a June 1981 interview, Gordon Thompson of the Union of Concerned
Scientists told us he felt that a coupling of cooling systems and the
proximity of the storage pools to the reactors made the odds on an
accident in those pools "at least as high" as in the reactors
themselves. "The danger is very real," he said.
According to the DOE, in 1980 there were some 7460 metric tons of
uranium in spent fuel assemblies in the U.S., with a predicted 90,000
tons to be on hand by the year 2000. ({Spent Fuel}, p. 3.)
46. Ralph Blumenthal, "Atom Wastes of War Haunt Niagara Area from `Grave,'"
{New York Times}, June 23, 1980 (hereafter cited as "Haunt").
47. New York State Assembly Task Force on Toxic Substances, {The Federal
Connection: A History of US Military Involvement in the Toxic
Contamination of Love Canal, and the Niagara Frontier Region} (Albany:
Task Force on Toxic Substances, January 29, 1981), p. 120.
48. Ibid., pp. i and viii.
49. Blumenthal, "Haunt."
50. Marvin Resnikoff, "Radioactivity Measurements of Four Deer Liver
Samples," Sierra Club Radioactive Waste Campaign, March 30, 1981.
51. Blumenthal, "Haunt." See also, Ralph Blumenthal, "Big Atom Waste Site
Reported Found Near Buffalo," {New York Times}, January 31, 1981.
52. Danielle DeGolier, interviews, March and April 1981; see also,
{Maclean's Magazine} 94, No. 7 (February 16, 1981): 12.
------
Catastrophe at Kyshtym
In the fall or winter of 1957-1958--within months of the fires at
Rocky Flats and Windscale, and while wastes were simmering at Lewiston
and Tonawanda and still piling up at INEL, Savannah River, and
Hanford--a massive explosion blew apart a radioactive-waste dump in
the Ural Mountains of the Soviet Union.
The blast sent huge quantities of radiation into the air. It killed
hundreds--possibly thousands--of people. It made permanently
unlivable an area at least fifty kilometers square. And it ended
forever any possible illusions about the dangers of radioactive waste.
When it happened, Soviet authorities quickly muzzled news of the
disaster. So did the Central Intelligence Agency, which knew about it
within the year, but kept it secret from the American public for two
decades. Word of the explosion finally leaked into the western press
in 1976, when emigre scientist Dr. Zhores Medvedev published "Two
Decades of Dissidence" in the British journal {New Scientist}. The
article was primarily about Soviet science. But in the course of his
discussion Medvedev devoted a section to the Kyshtym accident, which
he attributed to sloppy Soviet handling of rad-wastes.
"There was an enormous explosion, like a violent volcano," Medvedev
explained. "The nuclear reactions had led to an over-heating in the
underground burial grounds. The explosion poured radioactive dust and
materials high up into the sky." The human fallout was "terrible. . .
. Tens of thousands of people were affected, hundreds dying, though
the real figures have never been made public. The large area, where
the accident happened, is still considered dangerous and is closed to
the public."[53]
Medvedev's passing descriptions drew outraged attacks from an
unexpected quarter--Sir John Hill, head of the United Kingdom Atomic
Energy Authority. Hill called the story "rubbish," "pure science
fiction," and "a figment of the imagination." In a letter to {The
Times} (London), Hill charged that "there may have been some other
accident, but at a time when the public are concerned about the
problems of nuclear waste I feel I should make it absolutely clear
that in my view the burial of nuclear waste could not lead to the type
of accident described."[54]
Medvedev was bewildered by the response. The accident was well
known in the Urals. Having been exiled from Russia for his "western"
views, he was now being blasted in the West for mentioning something
he had assumed was common knowledge.
But within a week after the controversy began, news stories appeared
in {The Denver Post, Los Angeles Times}, and elsewhere, acknowledging
that an accident had taken place. The articles relied on "American
intelligence experts"--the CIA--who asserted the accident was caused
by a runaway reactor. The agency knew otherwise, but its "experts"
said estimates of "hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries" were
"hard to believe."[55]
A month later a Russian emigre named Lev Tumerman wrote the
{Jerusalem Post} that in 1960 he had driven through the Urals and had
seen a road sign that "warned drivers not to stop for the next 30
kilometers and to drive through at maximum speed. On both sides of
the road as far as one could see the land was `dead'; no villages, no
towns, only the chimneys of destroyed houses, no cultivated fields or
pastures, no herds, no people. . . . nothing. The whole country
around Sverdlovsk was exceedingly `hot.' An enormous area, some
hundreds of square kilometres, had been laid waste, rendered useless
and unproductive for a very long time, tens or perhaps hundreds of
years."
As for the crucial question of what had actually caused the
accident, Tumerman said, "I cannot say with certainty" whether waste
was the culprit. "However," he added, "all people with whom I spoke-
-scientists as well as laymen--had no doubt that the blame lay with
Soviet officialdom who were negligent and careless in storing nuclear
wastes."[56]
Ironically Tumerman was an avid supporter of nuclear power and had
written to the {Post} in part to assure the Israeli public that the
catastrophe had not been caused by a reactor.
Now, still under attack, Medvedev began a painstaking survey of
Russian scientific literature. Though explicit mention of the
accident was banned, scores of scientists had gone to the Urals to
study its aftereffects. One of Kyshtym's great ironies was that
despite official secrecy far more will be known to future generations
about the radiation damage surrounding it than about either Windscale
or Rocky Flats, where official scientific follow-up was virtually
nonexistent.
Medvedev knew that his former colleagues had written more than a
hundred studies involving lakes and the fish in them, insects,
mammals, birds and vegetation that were "somehow" exposed to heavy
doses of radiation in late 1957 or early 1958. By identifying the
types of plant and animal life, the weather patterns, and other key
features of the area, Medvedev pieced together an indisputable
portrait of the "vast nothing" created by the catastrophe.
With the 1979 publication of his {Nuclear Disaster in the Urals}
even John Hill capitulated. "As a piece of scientific detection
work," Hill conceded in {New Scientist}, "Medvedev's book . . . makes
a very strong case for the occurrence of a major nuclear accident in
the southern Ural region."[57]
In late 1979 a special report from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory
confirmed that a system of fourteen lakes had been contaminated by the
Kyshtym blast. About thirty small towns listed in Soviet maps before
the accident were gone from contemporary maps.[58]
After being forced by a Freedom of Information suit to release some
of its documents, the CIA also confirmed the accident. As early as
1959 the agency had obtained eyewitness accounts confirming that "all
stores in Kamensk-Uralskiy which sold milk, meat and other foodstuffs
were closed as a precaution against radiation exposure, and new
supplies were brought in two days later by train and truck. The food
was sold directly from the vehicles, and the resulting queues were
reminiscent of those during the worst shortages during World War II. .
. . The people in Kamensk-Uralskiy grew hysterical with fear, and
with incidence of unknown `mysterious' diseases breaking out. A few
leading citizens aroused public anger by wearing small radiation
counters which were not available to everyone. . . ."[59]
One eyewitness reported a "terrific explosion" that made the ground
and buildings shake, and that resulted in all the leaves on nearby
trees being covered with "a heavy layer of red dust. . . . Very
quickly all the leaves curled up and fell off the trees" and leafy
green vegetables also "curled up and died."
The agency learned of a hospital "completely filled with victims of
the explosion. . . . Some were bandaged and some were not. . . . The
skin on their face, hands and other exposed parts of the body was
sloughing off."
Meanwhile homes had been burned to prevent people from reentering
them, and many local citizens "were allowed to take with them only the
clothes in which they were dressed." There was also "common
knowledge" that the area "had an abnormally high number of cancer
cases."[60]
"One of the current topics of conversation at the time," said
another source, "was whether eating fish or eating crabs from the
radioactive rivers of the area was more dangerous. . . . Hundreds of
people perished and the area became and will remain radioactive for
years."[61]
Once news of the accident leaked out, official American response was
restrained. "We've handled tens of thousands of pounds of this stuff
now for better than 30 years," said John O'Leary, then the Carter
administration's deputy secretary of energy. "You can say they had an
accident there. But what does that say? It says they were
careless."[62]
U.S. experts and analysts generally theorized the Urals catastrophe
had been caused by a chemical or steam explosion, and that it could
not happen here. "They don't know what they're doing and we do," said
one Ford administration official. American wastes "leak, but they
don't explode."[63]
A special 1972 AEC report warned otherwise. Entitled "WASH-1520,"
the study said a waste-dumping trench at Hanford--labeled Z-9--had
been pumped with wastes containing plutonium. The plutonium had
clustered. About one hundred kilograms of it--enough for at least ten
Nagasaki-sized bombs--had accumulated in about eighteen hundred cubic
feet of soil. That, warned "WASH-1520," led to a situation where "it
is possible to conceive of conditions which could result in a chain
reaction."[64]
The report emphasized that the chances of that were minimal. But
Congress hastily voted two million dollars, and the trench was dug up.
How close we came to a Kyshtym at Hanford is unknown. A better
question might be how close we {will} come at Hanford, at those
reactor site "swimming pools," at Lewiston, at West Valley, at
Savannah River, and at INEL. The United States, John O'Leary assured
the {National Journal}, has developed "elaborate standards" for
dealing with radiation. But, he conceded, "tomorrow morning you could
have a very bad accident because of stupidity."[65]
Kyshtym was "a tragedy of extraordinary dimensions," added Richard
Pollock of Ralph Nader's Critical Mass Energy Project, which had sued
for the release of the CIA documents. The explosion of nuclear wastes
had underscored the dangers of both weapons production and the
"peaceful atom." Pollock called for a moratorium on nuclear reactor
construction, and asked: "Will U.S. energy policy makers be willing
to accept the risk of hundreds of square miles of heavily contaminated
cropland or metropolitan areas as the price for electricity? Will we
be willing to write off a New York or Chicago or a Seattle or Miami as
the Soviets have with cities in their country?"[66]
------
53. Zhores Medvedev, "Two Decades of Dissidence," {New Scientist}, November
4, 1976, pp. 264-267; see also, Zhores Medvedev, "Facts Behind the
Soviet Nuclear Disaster," {New Scientist}, June 30, 1977, pp. 761-764
(hereafter cited as "Facts").
54. Zhores Medvedev, {Nuclear Disaster in the Urals} (New York: Vintage,
1980) pp. 5, 6, and 14.
55. Ibid., pp. 6-7.
56. Ibid., pp. 11-12.
57. Ibid., afterword.
58. J. R. Trabalka, et al.,{Analysis of the l957-58 Soviet Nuclear
Accident}, ORNL-5613 (Oak Ridge: Oak Ridge National Laboratory,
December 1979), pp. 12-17. This report also contains an interesting
discussion of speculative causes of the accident, on p. 41.
59. Central Intelligence Agency, {Accident at the Kasli Atomic Plant},
Report #CS 3/389, 785 (Washington, D.C.: CIA, March 4, 1959). In
citing this and other CIA reports by date and number, we are trying to
best approximate their exact source. But given the heavily censored
and rough photocopied state of the documents in our possession, some of
the dates and/or numbers here may not correspond properly to the quoted
material. The information itself, however, seems incontrovertible.
See also Medvedev, {Nuclear Disaster in the Urals}, and "Facts."
60. Central Intelligence Agency, {Miscellaneous Information on Nuclear
Installations in the U.S.S.R.}, Report #CS K-3/465,141 (Washington,
D.C.: CIA, February 16, 1961); and {Mysterious Explosion in
Chelyabinsk Oblast/Possible Radioactive Fallout Causing Destruction of
Trees and Vegetation/Many People Burned as Result of Explosion}, Report
#3,202,034 (Washington, D.C.: CIA, January 17, 1962).
61. Central Intelligence Agency, {1958 "Kyshtym Disaster"/Nuclear Accident
Involving Plutonium Wastes from Military Nuclear Reactors}, Report
#B-321/06645-77 (Washington, D.C.: CIA, March 25, 1977). These
documents were made public as a result of a Freedom of Information
suit.
62. Richard Corrigan, "Nuclear Disaster--Could Whatever Happened There
Happen Here?" {National Journal}, August 19, 1979, p. 1329.
63. Ibid.
64. Medvedev, {Nuclear Disaster in the Urals}, pp. 152-153.
65. Corrigan, "Nuclear Disaster."
66. Richard Pollock, in {Nader Group Discloses Federal Report Confirming
Soviet Nuclear Accident in 1957-58} (Washington, D.C.: Critical Mass
Energy Project, P.O. Box 1538, Washington, D.C. 20013; February 14,
1980).
------
______________________________________________________________________________
P A R T IV
____________
The "Peaceful Atom"
* * * * * * *
[part 12 of 18]
11
The Battle of Shippingport
Dwight Eisenhower stood in the Oval Office of the White House and
waved what his press secretaries had dubbed a "neutron wand." The
date was May 23, 1958, a year in which the United States would
detonate seventy-seven atomic tests, but one that would also see the
first tentative test ban agreement. The ceremonial shaft, which had
been topped with a futuristic phosphorescent bulb, passed through an
electric eye as Eisenhower waved it. The President thus tripped a
circuit that fired up America's first commercial atomic reactor--at
Shippingport, Pennsylvania, three hundred miles west of the White
House.
Shippingport, he said, "represents the hope of our people that the
power of the atom will ease mankind's burdens and provide additional
comforts for human living."[1] The global impact was hard to
overstate. Shippingport embodied a fervent promise that the
technology that had obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki would at last
serve some useful peacetime purpose.
Eisenhower had set the stage four and a half years earlier. In
December of 1953, just prior to the first hydrogen bomb blasts in the
Marshall Islands, Eisenhower told the United Nations that America was
committed to turning its nuclear sword into a plowshare. Atomic power
would generate electricity to help build a better world. "The United
States," he said, "pledges before you--and therefore before the
world--its determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma--to
devote its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the
miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death,
but consecrated to his life."[2] As Eisenhower introduced the
"peaceful atom," nuclear weapons testing continued in Nevada and in
the Pacific.
Nuclear reactors had been in use in the U.S. since the early 1940s.
Their chief function had been to generate plutonium for use on
Nagasaki, and in later tests. But as a by-product these reactors also
generated large quantities of heat. By harnessing this heat to boil
water, steam would be created to turn turbines and generate
electricity. Given the apparently infinite power of the atom, there
seemed no reason why nuclear electricity could not also be infinitely
inexpensive, or--as its supporters would later put it--"too cheap to
meter." A new industry had been born.
But America's private utilities were skeptical. With a few
exceptions its generally conservative executives were worried about
the dangers of a nuclear accident and the risks of sinking so much
capital into an untested technology. It was only with government-
insurance guarantees, fuel subsidies, and lavish research-and-
development help that commercial atomic power moved ahead. Even at
that, private utilities did not become heavily involved until faced
with the threat of being squeezed out of business by federal
competition in the form of the Tennessee Valley Authority and other
government-owned utilities. To this day TVA remains the nation's
single largest reactor buyer. As Sam Day, former editor of the
{Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists}, told us: "The private electric
companies did not jump into nuclear power. They were kicked in."[3]
------
1. Harry Black, {Pittsburgher Magazine}.
2. Dwight Eisenhower, "Address Before the General Assembly of the United
Nations on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy," New York City, December 8,
1953. (In Public Papers of the Presidents.)
3. Sam Day, interview, June 1981. See also, Irwin Bupp and Jean-Claude
Derian, {Light Water} (New York: Basic Books, 1978), p. 35.
------
Gofman and Tamplin
One enthusiastic backer of the peaceful atom, however, was Duquesne
Light. As its Shippingport turbine approached full capacity, Duquesne
executives saw the fulfillment of a dream. "We went out and found the
best contractors," said the company's Earl Woolever more than a decade
later. "We built the station following the most exact requirements in
less than four years."
In general the plant, located thirty miles northwest of Pittsburgh,
seemed to operate trouble-free. Built with strict supervision from
the legendary Hyman Rickover, and in the backyard of the giant
Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Corporation, which would become a center
of the nuclear industry, Shippingport seemed destined to set the tone
for all commercial reactors to follow. "We never had any trouble with
it," Woolever boasted to {The Pittsburgher Magazine} years later. It
"ran like a top."[4]
The apparent success at Shippingport was heartening news to the
nascent reactor industry. Despite his Republican philosophy of a
free-market approach, Eisenhower was pouring billions of tax dollars
into the development of atomic power. Kennedy and Johnson would
follow (by 1980 the Department of Energy would estimate that
government subsidies to commercial atomic power would total thirty-
nine billion dollars.[5]) The AEC's early predictions that there
would be twelve hundred reactors in the United States by the year
2000--two dozen for each state of the Union--began to gain
credibility.[6]
In the early sixties, as the test ban treaty took hold, scientists
who had devoted long years to fighting for it went back to their
laboratories with a sense of pride, accomplishment, and relief. For
most of them there was no hint of any further controversies over
radiation.
But the furor over bomb testing and the accompanying fallout had
sown the seeds of distrust. As early as 1956, just three years after
Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" speech, the United Auto Workers (UAW)
intervened against the construction of the Fermi fast breeder reactor,
proposed for the town of Monroe, forty miles south of Detroit.
Led by Walter Reuther and his assistant Leo Goodman, the UAW
challenged Detroit Edison's plan as being ill-conceived and untested.
The union took the utility all the way to the Supreme Court before
losing 7-2. But Justices Hugo Black and William O. Douglas issued a
minority opinion full of portent. Allowing an unproven technology to
go ahead with such force, they said, was "a light-hearted approach to
the most awesome, the most deadly, the most dangerous process that man
has ever conceived."[7]
In the early 1960s, as the debate over fallout peaked in the last
days of atmospheric testing, the Atomic Energy Commission undertook
its first systematic investigation of the health effects of atomic
radiation. Nearly eighteen years after the bombings at Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, the commission in May of 1963 announced the establishment of
a "comprehensive, long-range program exploring in greater breadth and
depth . . . man-made environmental radioactivity and [its] effects
upon plants, animals and human beings."[8]
The program would be conducted at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory
under the direction of Dr. John Gofman. Gofman seemed the perfect
choice. He had been a graduate student under Glenn Seaborg, an atomic
pioneer later to become chairman of the AEC. Gofman himself was a
brilliant nuclear chemist whose pioneering research helped make
possible the discoveries of plutonium and an isotope of uranium,
without which atomic reactors would not have been possible.
Gofman had since become a medical doctor and a nationally known
health researcher, holding a number of prestigious awards for his work
on heart disease.
Most important of all--from the AEC's standpoint--Gofman was an
atomic loyalist. During the days of the test ban campaign he had
served on the commission's "Truth Squad," which toured the country in
the path of Linus Pauling and others, attacking their antitesting
opinions.
But soon after taking charge of the AEC's radiation health program,
Gofman was submerged in controversy. Summoned to Washington to
"discuss radioactive iodine," he found himself in the midst of a
heated discussion about Harold Knapp, an AEC scientist whose study of
fallout in southern Utah had shown levels of radiation far in excess
of commission standards. The real purpose of the meeting, Gofman said
later, was to find a way to suppress Knapp's findings, which would,
"in effect, make the AEC reports over the past ten years look
untrue."[9] After dissecting Knapp's research, Gofman and three other
committee members could find nothing wrong with it. They recommended
publication of his paper.
AEC commissioner James Ramey responded by trying to cancel the
entire Lawrence Livermore health program. He failed to kill the whole
project, but did succeed in reducing its budget.
Soon thereafter Gofman was joined in his research work by Dr Arthur
Tamplin. Tamplin had come to Lawrence Livermore from the Rand
Corporation. With his doctorate in biophysics he was a veteran of
high-level research on the space program and nuclear weaponry. He had
welcomed the shift to health work. "Instead of finding out better
ways to kill people," he remembered, "I was now finding ways to save
their lives."[10]
They began researching the anticipated health effects of Operation
Plowshare, a peaceful atom offshoot. It was aimed at using nuclear
explosions to dig canals, tunnels, harbors, fuel-storage caverns,
river diversions, and the like.
But the program ran afoul of the dangers of radiation. An attempt
to use hydrogen bombs to build a port in northern Alaska was scrapped
when it was shown the fallout would threaten nearby Eskimos. Plans
for blasting natural-gas storage domes into Pennsylvania and Colorado
mountainsides were also stopped by citizen opposition.
Inside the AEC, Gofman and Tamplin were coming to some hard
conclusions. "By 1967," they later wrote, "we had become thoroughly
convinced that the entire approach to the handling of public health
and safety aspects of nuclear energy development was erroneous." They
expressed their belief that projects such as those envisioned in
Operation Plowshare would make "an irreversible contribution of
pollution of the earth" and should be abandoned.[11]
For their trouble Gofman and Tamplin soon became known to the AEC
hierarchy as "the enemy within." In 1969 they lived up to that
reputation by urging a tenfold reduction in the AEC's maximum
permissible radiation doses to the general public from nuclear
reactors.
The recommendation stunned backers of the peaceful atom. Gofman's
and Tamplin's findings had enormous weight; they resulted from six
years' work by men recognized as experts in their field, conducting a
major project initiated by the AEC itself.
Before 1969 only a tiny handful of scientists had considered the
issue of leaking reactors at all. The leaks in general came from the
breakdown of fuel sheathing in the controlled but superhot reactor
core. As cooling water flows around the core, it picks up radioactive
isotopes, itself becomes radioactive, and carries that through the
maze of pipes and valves around the plant.
Some of the emitters then escape through the plant stacks as gases
and particulate matter, in particular lethal isotopes of iodine,
strontium, cobalt, carbon, cesium, and noble gases. Some--
particularly tritium--are also flushed out with waste water and into
local rivers and the oceans. Some neutrons and gamma radiation also
penetrate the containment vessel that tops the reactor. Such releases
are an ongoing aspect of normal power reactor operations.[12]
Both the scientific community and the public had been assured that
reactor leakage would be virtually nonexistent, and at any rate would
pose no serious health threat. Now John Gofman and Arthur Tamplin
were saying otherwise. At a major symposium in San Francisco in
October of 1969 they warned that emissions from commercial atomic
power plants considered "acceptable" could in fact kill large numbers
of people. "If the average exposure of the U.S. population were to
reach the allowable 0.17 rads per year average," they warned, "there
would in time be an excess of 32,000 cases of fatal cancer plus
leukemia per year." And the deaths would occur "year after year."[13]
Thus they recommended an immediate lowering of the legal exposure
limit by a factor of ten, to 0.017 rads.
The paper was greeted by a storm of outrage. AEC and industry
supporters argued that Gofman's and Tamplin's fears were baseless.
The tightening of standards, they added, would cost billions of
dollars and was simply a financial impossibility for the fledgling
industry.
But the two scientists persisted in presenting their findings to the
public. In the late fall of 1969, after testifying in front of a
Senate subcommittee, Tamplin was ordered by his superior at Lawrence
Livermore to submit all future public speeches and writings to the AEC
for prior review. It was not for censorship, he was told, but only to
give the commission time to respond.
On that understanding Tamplin submitted a paper he had been asked to
present at a Boston meeting of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science (AAAS). It was returned to him heavily
censored. When Tamplin protested, he was quickly informed that a
strong contingent within the AEC had wanted to fire him outright, but
that he would be allowed to deliver the paper if he went to the AAAS
meeting on his own time, at his own expense.
Soon John Gofman intervened on Tamplin's behalf, and a compromise
was reached. Tamplin went to the meeting under commission auspices.
But he deleted from his paper a call for a five-year moratorium on
reactor construction.
Two weeks later seven of the twelve people on Tamplin's staff were
removed from his supervision. His project on estimating internal
radiation doses from nuclear facilities was taken away from him. And
the following June four more staff members were cut, leaving him one
coworker. The actions were not political, said the AEC, but "were
taken for reasons related to budgetary reduction allocations, of
resources to programs of highest priority and a judgement of relative
scientific productivity." By 1975 Tamplin could hang on no longer,
and he resigned.[14]
Two years earlier John Gofman had also resigned. His own budget had
been slashed, his research and writings were being constantly
subjected to AEC scrutiny, his public utterances open to commission
harassment.
By the early 1970s the stakes had indeed grown enormous. In 1969,
when Gofman and Tamplin issued their call for stricter health
standards, ninety-five reactors were already operating, under
construction, or on order in the U.S. In 1976 the number would peak
at 219. Richard Nixon would by then have labeled nuclear energy the
keystone of "Project Independence," designed to make the U.S. free of
its need for foreign oil.
"What surprised us beyond belief," Gofman and Tamplin wrote in their
book {Poisoned Power}, "was that from all over the country our
colleagues in various aspects of nuclear energy, particularly nuclear
electricity, expressed their shock and disbelief that such a massive
cancer-plus-leukemia risk could conceivably accompany exposure to `the
allowable' Federal Radiation Guideline." Indeed, twenty-five years
after Hiroshima, a dozen after the first atmospheric test moratorium,
"a whole new industry, nuclear electricity, was growing up in the
country with all of its experts totally unaware of the true hazards
associated with it."[15]
------
4. Black, {Pittsburgher Magazine}.
5. Joanne Omang, "Study Says A-Power Has Gotten $40 Billion in U.S.
Subsidies," {Washington Post}, December 26, 1980.
6. AEC, {Nuclear Power Growth, 1974-2000}, WASH-1139 (Washington, D.C.:
AEC, February 1974).
7. Fuller, {We Almost Lost Detroit}, pp. 118-119.
8. AEC, San Francisco Operations Office, "Biomedical Studies Planned for
AEC's Livermore Laboratory," press statement, May 31, 1963.
9. John W. Gofman and Arthur R. Tamplin, {Population Control Through
Nuclear Pollution} (New York: Nelson-Hall, 1970).
10. Arthur Tamplin, interview, November 1980.
11. Gofman and Tamplin, {Population Control}, p. 111.
12. W. Boland, et al., "Radioecological Assessment of the Wyhl Nuclear
Reactor," NRC Translation #520, May 1978.
13. John W. Gofman and Arthur R. Tamplin, {Poisoned Power} (Emmaus, Pa.:
Rodale Press, 1971 ), p. 96.
14. R. S. Lewis, {The Nuclear Power Rebellion} (New York: The Viking
Press, 1972), p. 102.
15. Gofman and Tamplin, {Poisoned Power}, p. 98.
------
Enter Ernest Sternglass
Among those scientists who had not considered the possible dangers
of atomic power reactors was Dr. Ernest Sternglass. As a Navy
technician about to be sent to the Pacific, Sternglass had welcomed
the end of World War II--signaled by the atomic bombing of Japan--
which "meant I wouldn't have to go fight there."
After the war he worked in the Naval Ordnance Laboratories, got his
doctorate from Cornell, and in 1952 joined Westinghouse in Pittsburgh
as a researcher. Like dozens of other leading American scientists,
Sternglass also campaigned for an end to atmospheric bomb testing.
When the treaty was finally signed in 1963, he--like most of his
colleagues--"went back to my laboratory and didn't think about
radiation issues for a while." In 1967 Sternglass joined the faculty
of the University of Pittsburgh, where he headed up the newly created
laboratory for radiological physics.
While at both Westinghouse and the University of Pittsburgh,
Sternglass worked actively as an inventor. He played a key role in
developing a number of radiation-related innovations, including an
image tube used in the space program to send back pictures from the
moon, and technology key to a new type of gas-cooled power reactor.
When we talked with him in the fall of 1980, he was finishing work on
a new method using a computer to take X rays without film.
During that interview Sternglass told us that the work of Alice
Stewart had first alerted him to the dangers of small doses of
radiation. "We all knew from the bombs that large doses could be
dangerous," he said. "But when Dr. Stewart showed that small X-ray
doses could harm infants {in utero}, that opened up a whole new way of
looking at things."
Official researchers had made a crucial mistake in measuring the
effects of radiation by looking primarily at damage to genes without
also looking at the embryo. "A human fetus in the first trimester of
development can be many times more radiation-sensitive than human
genes," Sternglass said. "When the AEC failed to consider what
fallout was doing to infants, they missed the most important effect of
them all, and thus vastly underestimated the damage being done by the
bomb tests."[16]
In 1969 Sternglass published an article in the {Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists}, contending that some 375,000 American infants had
died as a result of atomic bomb testing. The thesis rested on the
idea that as medical technology was advancing, the rate of infant
mortality dropped, essentially by a constant percentage each year.
The better the technology got, the fewer babies were dying at birth.
But when the bomb testing began, the rate of decline slowed. When the
tests stopped, the rates began to drop again as they had before, in
keeping with continued medical advances.
It was the "bump" in the line--a bump involving roughly 375,000
American babies--that Sternglass attributed to radioactive bomb
fallout. Particularly important in that calculation was iodine 131,
which could travel through the placenta and irradiate the tiny
prenatal thyroid. By destroying cells in that crucial gland, in its
early stage of development, radiation would cause stunted growth brain
damage, and underdeveloped lungs that could make it impossible for the
new baby to survive the first few days of life. Congenital
deformities, underweight, hypothyroidism, and a breathing problem
called hyaline membrane disease can be considered symptoms of I-131
poisoning because of fallout. They had, said Sternglass, slowed the
downward trend of infant deaths below what should have been expected
during the height of the bomb testing, and in so doing had killed
those 375,000 American babies.[17]
Sternglass's assertions came in the same year--1969--as Gofman's and
Tamplin's recommendation of a tenfold reduction in exposure levels
from atomic reactors.
As shocking as Sternglass's findings seemed, they were by no means
the most radical estimates of death from fallout. In 1958--eleven
years before Sternglass's article--Nobel prizewinner Linus Pauling had
predicted that 140,000 people would die from {each and every} bomb
test, a prediction that translated into literally millions of total
deaths over time.[18] Pauling also wrote that a single fallout
product, radioactive carbon 14, from a single year's bomb testing--30
megatons of explosions--could cause 425,000 embryonic and neonatal
deaths (deaths before one month of age), 170,000 stillbirths and
childhood deaths, and result in another 55,000 children being born
with "gross physical or mental defects."[19] Russian scientist Andrei
Sakharov added his own calculation that bomb-produced carbon 14 would
kill ten thousand people for every megaton blown off in the
atmosphere, a toll that translated into millions of deaths over time.
As a "conservative estimate" Sakharov said that testing by the mid-
fifties had caused half a million human deaths. "We cannot exclude
the possibility that the total number of victims is already
approaching 1 million persons," he added and that each year continued
testing increases this number by 200 to 300 thousand persons."[20]
A decade later Sternglass was pointing specifically at the American
people. He was saying that as of 1969, based on national infant-
mortality statistics, about 375,000 American infants had already died
from the tests, and countless more American children and adults were
suffering ill-effects. Because it dealt with hard statistics about
American children, it was an assertion that cut to the very core of
the nuclear industry.
Quickly the AEC searched its ranks for someone to refute Sternglass.
It chose Arthur Tamplin at Lawrence Livermore. Tamplin dissected
Sternglass's study and decided the case had been overstated. Fallout,
he said, had killed about 4,000 American babies, not 375,000. The
rest of the excess had been due to social factors, including
poverty.[21]
The AEC was pleased with Tamplin's findings, and urged him to
publish his refutation of Sternglass in {Science}. But they asked him
to omit the assertion that the bombs had killed four thousand infants.
Sternglass stuck to his figures--and does to this day. Over the
decade-plus since publication of his first major article, he has been
frequently attacked. One public-relations firm--Charles Yulish
Associates--has published an entire volume aimed at refuting
Sternglass; this book is primarily circulated among utility
executives. The industry as a whole has devoted thousands of dollars
to undercutting his reputation.[22]
Nuclear opponents have also had their complaints. In the wake of
Three Mile Island, Tamplin told {The New York Times} that Sternglass
"never completes his studies. He doesn't go back several years to see
what kinds of fluctuations might be expected, and he doesn't examine
enough different areas to get meaningful data."[23]
But as radiation continued to prove more dangerous than previously
believed, and Sternglass persisted in his research, key confirmation
of his major conclusions continued to surface. In 1969, for example,
soon after issuing his estimates on the infant fallout toll,
Sternglass attacked the theory of the antiballistic missile system
(ABM). The multibillion-dollar proposal, then under serious
consideration in Congress, would have placed nuclear missiles around
American cities. In case of attack they would be fired into the air.
The atomic explosions would then bring down incoming Soviet missiles,
thus protecting American soil. Sternglass charged in {Esquire}
magazine that such a system would jeopardize the survivability of
future human generations. In "The Death of All Children," he argued
that just as testing fallout had caused a rise in infant-death rates,
radiation released by ABMs exploding over American cities would
virtually guarantee that no future children would survive in them--or
anywhere else on the planet. "A full-scale ABM system," he wrote,
"protecting the United States against a Soviet first strike, could, if
successful, cause the extinction of the human race."[24]
Sternglass also outlined his case in the {Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists}, which printed his conclusions alongside a counter-article
by Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson, who had worked on the hydrogen
bomb. Dyson argued in favor of the ABM. But when he read
Sternglass's article, he decided to write the {Bulletin} a letter.
"The evidence is not sufficient to prove Sternglass is right," Dyson
said. But "the essential point is that Sternglass may be right. The
margin of uncertainty in the effects of world-wide fallout is so large
that we have no justification for dismissing Sternglass's numbers as
fantastic."[25]
Sternglass's conclusions on the ABM also convinced U.S. congressmen
Jonathan Bingham of New York and Lucien Nedzi of Michigan, who noted
in the {Congressional Record} that his findings made a nuclear first
strike "unthinkable." Bingham later said Sternglass's correlation of
bomb test fallout to a rise in infant deaths "appears to be the only
explanation currently available to explain the excess infant mortality
in this country noted in recent years by the Public Health Service."
Indeed, Bingham added, "no theory currently has much evidence to
support it other than that now offered by Dr. Sternglass."[26]
Sternglass also found later confirmation of some of his fallout
conclusions from a most unexpected source--the U.S. Navy. In 1979 he
and Stephen Bell, an educational psychologist, presented a paper
before the American Psychological Association suggesting that the
atmospheric tests were linked to a decline in college-entrance
Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores among American teenagers. The
argument hinged on the theory that test fallout had affected the
mental capacities of children born downwind. The effects were
particularly strong in Utah, said Sternglass and Bell, where average
SAT scores among young adults seventeen to eighteen years after the
bomb tests had plunged twenty-six points while the decline was much
less in control states where fallout levels were much lower. The drop
was additionally significant because it had occurred among a
nonsmoking, nondrinking, and highly success-oriented Mormon
population. Sternglass and Bell further predicted that once children
who had been born after the test ban came of age, the scores would
again begin to rise.[27]
The paper met with harsh criticism from the nuclear establishment.
Among other things, an increase in television watching and the
consumption of junk food were blamed for the SAT declines.
But in 1980 a study commissioned by the U.S. Navy substantiated the
thesis. The Navy was concerned that its increasingly complex weapons
technology was outstripping the abilities of new recruits to manage
it, and it worried about a decline in the mental abilities of American
youth. Researchers Bernard Rimland and Gerald Larson agreed that
radiation probably played an important role. In terms of the SAT,
they said, the findings were "consistent to the hypothesis that the
proximity to the tests or high rainfall downwind from the point of
detonation should lead to the largest decline."
In fact, Rimland and Larson added: "The state having the largest
drop in scores from children born during this two-year period [1956-
58] was Utah, a fact which is consistent with Utah's proximity to the
Nevada Test Site and the general northeastern motion of the fallout
clouds produced by the Nevada tests." Thus they said, "Sternglass and
Bell provide very convincing and disquieting evidence closely linking
the SAT score decline to the cumulative effects of nuclear fallout."
"I wish it weren't so," Bernard Rimland told us in a 1981 interview,
"but I don't think anyone could look at the data and come to any other
conclusion. Sternglass's work is very sound and very convincing."[28]
But by the time Rimland and Larson had confirmed Sternglass's
findings on fallout, another radiation source--atomic power reactors-
-had moved to center stage.
------
16. Ernest Sternglass, interview, October 1980.
17. Ernest Sternglass, "Infant Mortality and Nuclear Tests," {Bulletin of
the Atomic Scientists}, April 1969. Vol. 25. See also, Ernest
Sternglass, "The Death of All Children," {Esquire}, September 1969.
18. Pauling, {No More War}, p. 108.
19. Linus Pauling, "Genetic and Somatic Effects of Carbon-14," {Science}
128, No. 3333 (November 14, 1958).
20. Andrei Sakharov, "Radioactive Carbon from Nuclear Explosion and
Nonthreshold Biological Effects," {Soviet Journal of Atomic Energy}
(translated from Russian by Consultants Bureau, Inc., 227 W 17th St.,
New York City; January 1956).
21. Arthur R. Tamplin, "Infant Mortality and the Environment," {Bulletin of
the Atomic Scientists} 25 (December 1969): 23-29. See also Metzger,
{Atomic Establishment}, pp. 277-278. For an additional view on
Sternglass's calculations, see Michael Friedlander and Joseph Klarmann,
"How Many Children?" {Environment Magazine} 11, No. 10 (December 1969).
The issue also contains a comment from Sternglass.
22. C. B. Yulish, ed., {Low-Level Radiation: A Summary of Responses to
Ten Years of Allegations by Dr. Ernest Sternglass} (New York: Charles
Yulish Associates, 1973). Attacking Ernest Sternglass has posed a
particularly difficult problem for the nuclear industry. Most
scientists have been dependent on the government or industry for their
salaries and grants. As a tenured professor with patents of his own,
Sternglass has been financially beyond the industry's grasp, leaving
them only his reputation to attack.
23. Jane Brody, "3 Mile Island: No Health Impact Found," {New York Times},
April 15, 1980.
24. Sternglass, "Death of All Children."
25. Freeman Dyson, "A Case for Missile Defense," {Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists}, April 1969; and Dyson, "Comments on Sternglass's Thesis,"
{Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists}, June 1969, p. 27.
26. Richard S. Lewis, {The Nuclear-Power Rebellion} (New York: Viking,
1972), pp. 68-9.
27. Ernest Sternglass and Stephen Bell, "Fallout and the Decline of
Scholastic Aptitude Scores," a paper presented at the Annual Meeting
of the American Psychological Association, New York, New York,
September 3, 1979.
28. Bernard Rimland and Gerald E. Larson, "Manpower Quality Decline: An
Ecological Perspective," {Armed Forces and Society}, Fall 1981; and
Rimland, interview, August 1981.
------
Showdown at Shippingport
In May of 1970 the Shippingport atomic plant was generally well
accepted by the people of western Pennsylvania. So there were few
objections when Duquesne Light opened hearings for a new reactor
project to be built a few hundred yards away. The multireactor
complex would be named after the area--Beaver Valley. It would be
financed by a consortium of five utilities serving some 2.3 million
customers. The first 850-megawatt unit at the plant would be on line
by the mid-1970s.
Almost by chance Ernest Sternglass decided to take a look at the
Environmental Impact Statement for Beaver Valley. To his surprise he
found that the plant operators were planning to emit sixty thousand
curies per year, an amount he termed "absolutely unthinkable."
"We already knew that small doses from fallout were causing problems
with pregnant mothers and infants," Sternglass told us. "And here
Gofman and Tamplin had pointed out that the allowed reactor dose of
one hundred seventy millirems could kill thirty-two thousand people
per year. And then to see that for Beaver Valley they were talking
about regular releases of sixty thousand curies per year, which even
without an accident meant a high dose for people all around the plant
. . . well, it was totally unacceptable."[29]
By this time plans to build Beaver Valley were well under way. In
keeping with federal regulations, Duquesne Light had contracted with
the Nuclear Utilities Services Corporation (NUS) of Rockville,
Maryland. NUS specialized in site surveys for utilities preparing
environmental assessments for nuclear reactors.
Beginning in January of 1971 NUS technicians worked their way
through the Beaver Valley, monitoring game animals, testing river and
well water, sampling the air and soil, and inspecting conditions at
local dairy farms. In April of 1972 NUS's conclusions began finding
their way into the offices of Duquesne Light. By the end of the year
the utility had a full report to send to the media.
But the supervisor of the new plant, in an effort to convince
Sternglass the project would be safe, sent him a copy of the report.
Sternglass read it and labeled it "a bombshell." Among other things
the NUS survey indicated that radiation levels in the vicinity of the
existing Shippingport reactor far exceeded normal expectations--by as
much as a factor of fifty thousand.
Sternglass quickly issued a paper accusing the operators of the
nation's premier commercial reactor of misrepresenting how much
radiation was leaking into the environment. In fact, said Sternglass,
the NUS statistics showed that levels of strontium 90 in milk at six
nearby farms "followed the rises and declines of the monthly power
output of the Shippingport plant." The strontium levels only went
down when the plant shut for repairs.
Sternglass also charged that the NUS study showed iodine 131 levels
in local milk to be 21 percent above federal standards, a factor of at
least ten above what was being found anywhere else in the eastern
United States. Radiation levels in Ohio River bottom sediment also
"rose and subsequently declined after the plant was shut for repairs."
And perhaps most significant of all, one monitoring station inside
the town of Shippingport had shown radiation levels as high as 375
millirems per year--more than twice what Gofman and Tamplin had just
predicted would create extraordinary cancer and leukemia deaths
nationwide. Thus, said Sternglass, radiation from the Shippingport
plant was killing people, lots of them.[30]
Sternglass's paper shocked Duquesne Light into drastic action.
Significantly the company did not attack his mathematics. After all,
as put by Joel Griffiths who covered the story for the {Beaver County
Times}, NUS had done a "thorough job. They found radioactivity in the
air, milk, soil, drinking water and just about everywhere."[31]
Duquesne did not challenge the presence of the radiation. Instead
they blamed it on bomb fallout.
However the only recent tests had been staged by the Chinese. That
fallout went everywhere, not just Shippingport. And Shippingport's
radiation levels were far above the national average.
Thus the AEC's own Earth Sciences Branch, which conducted an in-
depth investigation, soon concluded that "it is highly unlikely that
the radioactivity was of Chinese origin. Most likely it was either of
local origin or the result of inadequate sampling procedure."[32]
Until Sternglass released his paper, Duquesne Light had enjoyed the
reputation of operating "the safest nuclear power plant in the world"
at Shippingport. In 1971, the year previous, it had actually recorded
zero radiation releases from the plant stacks, the first time any
commercial reactor had claimed such an accomplishment.
But NUS had contradicted that record and had thrown the
multimillion-dollar Beaver Valley project into a political morass.
Something had to be done. As Griffiths put it, "a sharp divergence of
opinion" soon emerged between NUS, Duquesne Light, and the AEC.
"Faced with a choice between attributing the radioactivity to
Shippingport or NUS' incompetence, the AEC and others picked
incompetence and began levelling various technical charges against the
NUS reports."[33]
And that, wrote Griffiths, put NUS "in a delicate position"--not
unlike that of so many other atomic scientists whose data had somehow
unearthed conclusions the nuclear industry did not want to hear.
NUS was an established and respected operation. It was staffed with
scientific experts, and it had done radiation monitoring for more than
thirty other reactor sites. To undercut their credibility was to
jeopardize the licenses of many other expensive projects already under
way, with potentially enormous political and financial consequences.
Under tremendous pressure NUS reevaluated its findings. In March of
1973 it reported that its high readings around Shippingport were
accurate. But they said the radiation had come from Chinese bomb
fallout.
That conclusion was rejected out of hand by none other than Dr. John
Harley, director of the AEC's Health and Safety Laboratory. Harley
promptly labeled NUS's work "incompetent" and said an investigation
"would certainly turn up gross calculation errors or even that some
doctoring of numbers had occurred. . . .
"I believe," he added, "the situation is very serious."[34]
Three months later NUS had a startling new revelation to disclose.
Throughout the entire controversy it had maintained that it was
standard NUS policy to discard all samples. But now the company
announced that somehow, in this one case, some of the soil originally
tested around Shippingport had been unexpectedly found in a basement
in Maryland. NUS "restudied" the samples.
Soon thereafter it "admitted" that its original sampling
techniques--which had been applied at thirty-four other reactor
sites--were simply in error. They said there was, after all, no
extraordinary radiation around Shippingport.
------
29. Sternglass interview. See also, Anna Mayo, "Necrophiliac Nit-Pickers,"
{Village Voice}, September 11, 1973.
30. Ernest Sternglass, "Significance of Radiation Monitoring Results for
the Shippingport Nuclear Reactor," Pittsburgh: January 21, 1973
(hereafter cited as "Shippingport").
31. Joel Griffiths, "State Panel Questions Radiation Safety," {Beaver
County} (Pa.) {Times}, June 7, 1974 (hereafter cited as "Safety").
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid.
------
The Shapp Commission
But Ernest Sternglass had not merely publicized the news of NUS's
original radiation readings. He had also charged that an
extraordinary rate of infant deaths had surfaced in communities around
the reactor. It was not the first time he had made such a charge.
In the fall of 1970--a year after Gofman and Tamplin published their
findings linking cancer deaths to radiation releases from reactors--
Sternglass had begun to look at infant-mortality rates near a number
of plants. He soon found that the area around the Dresden reactor
near Chicago had experienced a significant rise in infant deaths in
nearby counties and in the huge urban area downwind. Surveys of the
populations near reactors at Hanford, California's Humboldt plant, and
Indian Point, near New York City, showed similar impacts, as did a
study of the environs of the West Valley reprocessing and waste
storage facility in upstate New York.[35]
In July of 1971 the pattern of Sternglass's initial findings was
given substantiation by Dr. Morris DeGroot, then chairman of the
Department of Statistics at Pittsburgh's Carnegie-Mellon Institute.
In his papers, and in interviews with us, DeGroot emphasized that his
findings were only preliminary. But his statistics indicated a
tentative correlation between reactor emissions and health problems at
Dresden, Indian Point, and around the Brookhaven reactor on Long
Island, New York.[36]
DeGroot also studied the reactor at Shippingport, and did notice a
rise in infant-mortality rates there. But they did not seem to be
directly correlated to the recorded radioactive emissions.
Now, however, Ernest Sternglass charged that the revelations from
the NUS findings confirmed that the emissions must have been larger
than Duquesne Light was publicly acknowledging. And that there was,
in fact, a correlation to infant-death rates nearby.
Nine miles downwind in the town of Aliquippa, Sternglass found a
twenty-year high in infant-mortality rates. Rises in fetal mortality,
underweight births, and leukemia were also evident. And communities
down the Ohio River had suffered infant-mortality rises that
corresponded with emissions from both Shippingport and the nearby
Waltz Mills reactor.[37]
Shippingport had now become front-page news. By April of 1973
Pennsylvania governor Milton Shapp was appointing a high-level
commission to look into the affair. The commissioners included
DeGroot, Dr. Karl Z. Morgan and Dr. Edward Radford, an expert in the
health effects of radiation who would later chair the National Academy
of Sciences Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation
(the BEIR committee). Also on the Shapp Commission were Dr. Paul
Kotin, of Temple University's School of Medicine, and Dr. Harry Smith,
dean of the School of Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Perhaps more important, the commission also had three staff members,
all of them attached to the state of Pennsylvania. One was Thomas
Gerusky, chief of the state's Department of Radiological Health. The
second was his assistant, Margaret Reilly, who headed that
department's Office for Environmental Survey. And the third was Dr.
George Tokuhata, director of the state's Bureau of Epidemiological
Research. All three would later become key figures in defending the
nuclear industry at Three Mile Island.
The Shapp Commissioners concerned themselves first with the question
of abnormal releases of radiation from the plant. Once the NUS
findings had been revised, there was "no substantial evidence" that
emissions had been greater than Duquesne Light had reported. But an
"absence of comprehensive off-site monitoring" meant that Sternglass's
assertions could not be denied, either.
Indeed Duquesne Light had been "derelict" in its radiation
monitoring duties. Its programs were "inadequately designed" and a
precise determination of how much radiation was leaking from
Shippingport simply "was not possible."
As for NUS, the commission charged the company with "inadequate and
careless methods" and found it "difficult to understand why at this
late date NUS now finds its early reported high values were false when
several different and independent types of analyses were involved."
In fact, reported the commission, there were indications from
federal network studies that the initial "uncorrected" NUS figures may
have been accurate. The federal studies had shown "high levels of
Sr-90 in milk and of Sr-90 and Cs-137 in total diets of Pittsburgh
residents."[38] Commissioner DeGroot said it was "highly unlikely
that NUS could have made systematic errors, all in one direction, in
several different analytical techniques."
Commissioner Morgan was more direct. "There appears to be," he
said, "a strong suspicion of dishonesty." He later added, "For a long
period now the radioactivity levels in milk in that general area have
been high according to the public health agency surveys, which are
completely separate from the NUS survey. This has never been
explained."[39]
As for infant-mortality and cancer rates, the commission also
reported mixed conclusions. And this may have been a function of the
staff.
As deliberation on Sternglass's figures began, Dr. Tokuhata shifted
the numbers according to DeGroot. He told the commissioners that some
of the crucial local health statistics were "inaccurate" and reflected
higher numbers of infant mortalities than actually existed. Some
communities, he said, listed infant deaths that did not belong there
because people came from elsewhere to use the hospitals, and were thus
not actually town residents. After finding other "inadequacies" in
the official data, Tokuhata vastly reduced the numbers on which
Sternglass had based his conclusions.[40]
Tokuhata then repeated the method of adjusting the statistical base
for cancer death rates. Sternglass had charged that after a five-year
latency period following the opening of the reactor, cancer death
rates had increased in the Shippingport environs. But when Tokuhata
presented the numbers to the commission, they included the entire
decade of the 1960s, averaging in the first five years of reactor
operations--when no latency period had passed--with the second five,
when cancer rates did start to rise.
Thus the revised statistics gave the impression that the reactor had
had no effects. And thus the commission concluded that there was no
"systematic pattern" of deaths increasing with proximity to the
plant.[41]
There were other criticisms of Sternglass as well. Dr. Radford
stressed that rising infant-mortality rates could have been
attributable to additional social and environmental factors. In a
letter to us Radford characterized Sternglass's methods as "quite
incorrect."[42]
But the commission remained deeply divided. DeGroot, for example,
acknowledged the validity of Tokuhata's initial changes in the
infant-mortality statistics. But he warned that the key comparisons
were being made year-by-year and town-by-town. Thus he outlined to us
in a series of letters and interviews that it was wrong for Tokuhata
to subtract deaths for one year in one community without making
similar corrections for other years and other communities that were
serving as controls. Changing the numbers for just some towns, and
just for 1971, would result in statistical changes going all one
direction--down.
In a letter to us Tokuhata denied comparing altered 1971 Aliquippa-
area numbers with unaltered figures for other areas in other years.
He acknowledged that "time and staff constraints" did not allow making
such changes for times or places other than the Aliquippa area in
1971.
But there was then some question as to what purpose the Aliquippa-
area alterations could possibly serve. DeGroot worried that Tokuhata
had only done "half the job" of correcting the statistics. He said
that throwing infant deaths out of Aliquippa without correcting for
area children born in nearby Pittsburgh hospitals--which were
attractive to Aliquippa residents because they were generally believed
to be of higher quality than local hospitals--would make the
Aliquippa-area infant-death problem seem less serious than it really
was.[43]
Tokuhata had also made a point of comparing health statistics in the
Shippingport area with the state averages. But infant-death rates
around Shippingport had been significantly {lower} than the state
average before the plant opened. Thus their correspondence to the
state average actually represented a {rise} that could be attributed
to the opening of the reactor. It was a statistical deception that
would surface again at Three Mile Island.
Overall, the commissioners concluded that "no sufficient evidence"
could be found to confirm charges of an escalated infant-death rate,
but "neither can they be refuted from available data." The
commissioners also said it was impossible to determine "whether the
infant-mortality rate in Aliquippa is or is not higher than would be
expected." But there was a "considerably higher" death rate there
"when white infants are considered separately" from nonwhite infants.
And though the leukemia death rate for the five-mile area around the
plant seemed to correspond to the state average, the death rate from
other neoplasms was "slightly higher than the state average for the
five-mile area and for the `on-river' communities."[44]
In general the industry and the media took the Shapp report as a
refutation of Sternglass's charges. "We found," Tokuhata told us in a
1981 interview, "that his allegations just were not true. The data
simply did not back up his conclusions."[45]
But two of the commissioners saw it differently. Sternglass had
been criticized for basing his conclusions "only on crude published
mortality data," said DeGroot in an appendix to the commission's final
report. "But those are the only data available." The criticism, he
said, "should more properly fall" on public-health agencies "that have
neither collected nor published" the necessary statistics.[46]
Dr. Morgan later told a congressional hearing that "some members of
the public, perhaps even some members of the panel, interpreted our
report to say that we had refuted the allegations of Dr. Sternglass.
However, I did not put that interpretation on our report. And I think
it is only fair to say that it is a fact that the levels of strontium
and cesium in and about Pittsburgh and neighboring counties were
higher than in other parts of the state and in other parts of the
nation."
Morgan emphasized that he did not believe those levels were
necessarily associated with Shippingport. But it was also clear that
"the illnesses and infant mortality [were] higher than in other parts
of the state and in other parts of the nation in these populations.
One can attempt to give reasons for it, but I don't think a
satisfactory answer was found."[47]
One thing the commissioners did agree on was that Duquesne Light's
radiation monitoring apparatus was totally inadequate. It thus
recommended that "the government carry out comprehensive evaluation of
radiation exposure of the public around nuclear facilities. Where the
possibility of significant exposure exists, appropriate epidemiologic
evaluation of the health of these populations should be
undertaken."[48] Toward that end it presented a long list of changes
to make it possible to determine exactly how much radiation was
leaking from Pennsylvania's nuclear power plants, and what effect it
might be having on the public.
But six years later, just after the accident at Three Mile Island,
Dr. Thomas Gerusky--who was in charge of radiation monitoring for the
state and who had served on the staff of the Shapp Commission--
admitted that "to the best of my knowledge, not a single one of those
recommendations was implemented. There just wasn't enough money for
the program."[49]
Meanwhile Duquesne Light began building two reactors at the Beaver
Valley site.
------
35. Ernest Sternglass, "Environmental Radiation and Human Health," in
{Proceedings of the Sixth Berkeley Symposium on Mathematical Statistics
and Probability} (held at the University of California, Berkeley,
April-July 1971), pp. 145-221.
36. Morris DeGroot, "Statistical Studies of the Effect of Low-Level
Radiation from Nuclear Reactors on Human Health," in {Proceedings of
the Sixth Berkeley Symposium on Mathematical Statistics and
Probability}, presented at the Conference on "Planning an
Epidemiological Study of Pollution Effects," University of California,
Berkeley, July 19-22, 1971. In a letter to Senator Edwin G. Holl
(October 20, 1970), DeGroot wrote: "At the present time, a certain
segment of the scientific community maintains the hypothesis that
exposure of a population to radioactive gaseous discharges at the
levels currently being observed for the Dresden plant increases the
infant mortality rate for that population. After having carried out
the statistical analysis mentioned here, I believe that there is
substantial probability that increased exposure to radioactive
discharges does cause an increase in the infant mortality rate."
37. Sternglass, "Shippingport."
38. Governor's Fact Finding Committee, "{Shippingport Nuclear Power Station
Alleged Health Effects}" (State of Pennsylvania, 1974) (hereafter cited
as {Shapp Report}).
39. Griffiths, "Safety," Dr. Karl Z. Morgan told Griffiths he thought
Duquesne Light's radiation monitoring program was "worse than none at
all" because whenever a high reading would surface, the utility "sat on
it."
40. Ibid.
41. {Shapp Report}. See also, Sternglass, {Secret Fallout}, pp. 139-177.
42. Edward Radford, letter to authors, February 4, 1981.
43. Morris DeGroot, interviews, April and July 1981; DeGroot, letter to
authors, May 13, 1981; and George Tokuhata, letter to authors, June 4,
1981.
44. {Shapp Report}.
45. George Tokuhata, interview, February 1981.
46. Morris DeGroot, "Comments," in {Shapp Report}.
47. {Radiation Standards and Public Health: Proceedings of a Second
Congressional Seminar on Low-Level Ionizing Radiation} (sponsored by
the Congressional Environmental Study Conference, the Environmental
Policy Institute, and the Atomic Industrial Forum, Washington, D.C.,
February 10, 1978), p. 46.
48. {Shapp Report}.
49. Richard Pollock, "Business as Usual in Pennsylvania," {Critical Mass
Journal}, December 1979, p. 7.
------
* * * * * * *
[part 13 of 18]
12
How Much Radiation?
Jane Lee is a tough-talking widow in her forties. From the kitchen of
her family's stone farmhouse in Etters, a tiny town in central
Pennsylvania, Lee has watched the quiet countryside around her undergo
some dramatic changes.
Few rural areas in the United States have remained as well kept as
the hill country around Harrisburg, a town of fifty thousand some 125
miles west of Philadelphia. With a large population of conservative,
slow-moving "plain folk" from the Amish and Mennonite tradition the
farm regions of the Susquehanna Valley still boast some of the most
beautiful and bountiful acreage in the world. Lush, deeply cultivated
fields and sturdy, well-kept barns are hallmarks of an area where
traditional Dutch folk symbols still mean much more than mere
souvenirs.
The deepest changes in this countryside of Jane Lee's have been the
invisible kind--stemming from radiation. In the mid-1960s
Metropolitan Edison, a subsidiary of the General Public Utilities
(GPU) holding company, decided to build a massive atomic power
complex. The plant would be at Three Mile Island, a narrow piece of
land in the middle of the Susquehanna River, ten miles southeast of
Harrisburg. The first 819-megawatt unit was ordered from Babcock &
Wilcox reactor producers in 1966. By 1974 it was on line.
There was little opposition to TMI-1. But Jane Lee had spoken out
about it. The state had already tried to put a toxic-waste dump on a
nearby hilltop, where runoff would pollute the water table. "If the
authorities were dumb enough to want to do something like that," Lee
told us, "then I didn't think they could be trusted with a nuclear
power plant either."
Living Next to Reactors
Lee's opposition to the project had made her visible. Two years
after TMI-1 opened, she began to get complaints from her neighbors
that strange things were happening to their animals. "We're all
accustomed to having an animal die here and there, or some birthing
problems, or an off-year with crops and the like," she told us. "But
this seemed very new. All of a sudden we were being plagued with a
whole lot of bizarre things. And when you have farmers telling you
their animals are falling down and can't get up, or there are
miscarriages, eggs not hatching, calves being born deformed, hair
falling out and cows dying, and that people who have been farming here
for decades can't find any explanation for it, well, you start to
wonder."
The "wondering" led just one place--Three Mile Island. In a room
behind her kitchen, three miles from the plant, Lee began accumulating
files, collecting signed statements from those of her neighbors who
were willing to put their animals' problems down on paper. "This
isn't an area where people are used to speaking out," she told us.
"It hasn't been easy to get people to come forward."
As we talked in the chilly dampness of early spring, Lee showed us
photographs of a badly deformed litter of kittens, born in 1978. One
appeared normal, a second was born with its hair in splotches, the
final two were hairless runts, born dead. "The cats get a triple dose
of radiation," Lee said. "They get it when they breathe and drink
like the rest of us. They get it again when they eat wild animals
like field mice. And they get it a third time when they lick
themselves down after running in the fields."[1]
Nor were the cats the only animals to suffer. Duck eggs failed to
hatch, and those ducklings that made it were often deformed. Rabbits
and goats were stillborn. Cats dropped dead for no apparent reason.
Trees lost their bark and gardens wilted overnight.
Emma Whitehall, who lived at the same farm within four miles of TMI
for all of her seventy years, told Lee that in 1978 her ducks laid 290
eggs, not one of which hatched. She also lost a milk cow and her
calf.
On the same road James Fitzgerald reported two calves born blind,
with unnaturally soft bones. Across the river in Middletown, less
than five miles from the reactor, Mary Ann Fisher saw a three-week-old
litter of kittens drop dead overnight. One hundred eggs laid by
twelve geese produced just one hatchling, which died.
In January of 1979, just after the opening of a second, larger
nuclear unit at Three Mile Island, Fisher lost four litters of kittens
to spontaneous abortions, had one full-term litter stillborn, and
complained of four heifers being unable to conceive. Her geese laid
eggs again with no hatchlings, then stopped setting.[2]
Charles Conley, who lives within eyesight of the TMI towers, also
had complaints. Ever since the plant opened, he said, rainfall would
wash a milky-white substance off his roof and into the cisterns from
which his cows would drink. If the cows drank it, "they would get
down and not be able to get up." If he dumped the white substance out
of the cisterns, "the grass would die."
Other neighbors also complained of the mysterious white substance,
and pointed to runoff lines below their roofs where something had
created a trough of dead grass.
Conley had no proof the white substance was coming from the power
plant. But he told us that "whenever it would shut down, why, the
powder would disappear. And when it would fire up, the powder would
come back."[3]
Born in 1914, within a half-mile of his farm, Conley readily
conceded that country life is full of ups and downs, and that plants
and animals get sick and die, sometimes for inexplicable reasons.
"Any farmer with livestock knows you'll have a history of trouble,"
added Gary Huntsberger, owner of four hundred acres near the plant.
"Just as you get one thing licked, you'll have another crop up."[4]
Indeed it is virtually impossible to nail down firm statistics on a
"normal" rate of birth defects and reproductive problems among farm
animals. Dr. Horst Leipold of Kansas State University, one of the
nation's leading experts on animal husbandry, told us that a 1 percent
stillbirth rate among beef and dairy cows was considered normal, and
that the rate might be twice that for goats and pigs. "If I hear
about two stillbirths, or malformations, at the same farm, I consider
that serious enough to go out there," Leipold told us.[5]
For farmers and many observers there seemed obvious reasons why
radiation around TMI, at Lloyd Mixon's ranch near Rocky Flats, and at
other nuclear facilities would cause an abnormal number of symptoms to
appear in animals before they would in humans. Some of them--
particularly cats and rabbits--are much smaller and reproduce far more
quickly, at a much earlier age, than humans. Most farm and wild
animals also keep their mouths and noses constantly to the ground, for
grazing and hunting. That means they absorb more heavy fallout
particles from the air they breathe, the water they drink, and the
plants and animals they eat. They may also receive more gamma doses
from emitters on the ground.
Some animals also may be more radiation-sensitive than adult humans.
In fact animals have been used as radiation monitors during abnormal
emissions at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. And it is well known
that pine trees are more sensitive to radiation than grown humans.[6]
Humans, on the other hand, usually wash their vegetables. They
stand farther off the ground than most other animals, and thus breathe
in fewer heavy particulates. Their meat and fish are often not
freshly slaughtered, giving some of the radiation time to decompose.
But ultimately, we are also susceptible. "Watch the animals," Helen
Caldicott, a Boston pediatrician and radiation expert, told us in
1980. "What happens to them first will be happening to people soon
enough."[7]
And what was happening to animals during normal operations at Three
Mile Island also seemed to be happening near other reactor sites. At
Hinsdale, New Hampshire, just across the Connecticut River from the
Vermont Yankee reactor, sixty-seven-year-old Annie Fostyck was seeing
things in her cows she'd never seen before. After the plant opened,
she said, there was a rash of "cows miscarrying, aborting. Cows with
boils, tumors, lameness. Cows eating clay even in winter." She also
complained of a "white, milky film" that floated in the air and would
"fly off when the corn was cut."
Neighbor John Solacz found that cows "have been harder to breed"
since the plant opened. "Right after freshening," he said, "some have
run a high fever, stopped eating and died within a week. They're
aborting too."
Steve Stoll, a public-relations man for Vermont Yankee, had heard
similar charges before. There was "nothing to substantiate" claims
the reactor was harming animals. "We have people calling us up all
the time with these complaints. But most of the time, it's just
generalities," he told {Vermonter} reporter Susan Green. "These
people do not know anything about radiation, so when anything is out
of the ordinary, it's easy to blame Vermont [Yankee]."
Mildred Zywna's complaints were not so easily dismissed. As a
Hinsdale town selectwoman, she had reported a general disappearance of
squirrels, rabbits, and birds after Vermont Yankee opened. A number
of trees had died mysteriously, and the bark was peeling off some on
the sides facing the plant. A grandmother in her late fifties, Zywna
had noticed a rise in thyroid cancers in town. She also knew that Dr.
Rosalie Bertell of the Roswell Park Memorial Cancer Research Institute
in Buffalo had noted a high rate of heart problems requiring
hospitalization in Vernon, where Vermont Yankee was located.
Disturbed by such findings, Zywna and her fellow town officers had
asked the state for statistics on cancer rates in Hinsdale. The state
never responded.[8]
Farmers in upstate New York near the Nine Mile Point and Fitzpatrick
power reactors got similar treatment. "We've been trying to get a
study done here for years," we were told by Nancy Weber, a dairy
farmer in the town of Mexico. "But we haven't been able to get
anybody to listen to us."
Weber's dairy farm has been in her husband's family for thirty-five
years, and is situated near both plants. The area also has toxic-
waste dumps. However, according to Weber NRC documents indicated that
emissions from the nearby reactors were peaking at the same time a
score of local farmers had experienced "more than normal abortions
among our animals" plus "extreme difficulty in getting cows bred."
Some calves that made it were coming out deformed, including several
born at 150 pounds, twice normal. "It was like a science fiction
movie," she said. "One calf came out staring at me with giant red
eyes." Among other things, the oversized calves were causing pelvic
separations among the mothers. For about a year, Weber told us, there
were instances of calves being born with two tails and three front
legs, with brain and liver tumors, and with severe deformations in
their internal organs. A goat farmer reported "mummified kids born
left and right." Reproductive problems among cats became rampant.
The NUS Corporation, which did the controversial environmental
monitoring at Shippingport in the early 1970s, also surveyed the
Fitzpatrick/Nine Mile Point area in 1980. They found abnormal cesium
levels at one nearby farm, but blamed it on bomb fallout. "Nobody
quite believed that," said Weber.[9]
Columnist Jack Anderson also reported some similar problems at
Shippingport. In his nationally syndicated column he said that the
new Beaver Valley plant had contaminated the drinking water supply at
the site, and had dumped nine thousand gallons of radioactive liquids
into the Ohio River without warning towns downstream that drew
drinking water from it.
Shippingport residents told journalist Howard Rosenberg, an
investigator for Jack Anderson, of "white dust that sometimes covered
their roofs and filled their cisterns. They charged that their water
wells and backyard gardens had occasionally been contaminated. They
showed him chunks of calcium sulfate that had fallen on their
property. He brought one plate-sized chunk of pollution back as a
souvenir."
Rosenberg also reported strange goings-on among area wildlife,
including "tales of birds that walked backwards." Hunters and
woodsmen said that "the lush foliage along the riverbank has turned
brown and sickly. The deer long ago abandoned their former haunts."
In an interview Rosenberg also told us that small animals like
rabbits, squirrels, and sparrows had disappeared from the woods.[10]
One of Anderson's columns on the situation at Shippingport was
banned by a number of western Pennsylvania newspapers.
But reports of similar symptoms in Arkansas surfaced on the national
wire of the Associated Press. In that case a farmer named Herschel
Bennett said the 850-megawatt Arkansas Nuclear One was destroying his
farm, which was just a quarter mile away.
Owned by Arkansas Power and Light Company (AP&L), Nuclear One is
seventy miles from Little Rock, in the town of Russellville. It was
granted its operating license in 1974. In the late winter of 1977
Bennett reported a calf born on his farm with no eyeballs. "One lid
was growed shut," he told the {Arkansas Gazette}. "The lid didn't
open, but you could feel there was nothing back there. The other
eyelid would open and close and there was no eyeball at all."[11]
The eyeless calf died on March 1, 1977. Another calf was born
around the same time with no tail. "Nothing like that calf being born
deformed ever happened here before," Bennett told us in a 1980
interview. Bennett and his wife had been on the same farm since the
1940s. The place had been owned by Bennett's grandfather before him.
Along with his thirty head of cattle Bennett managed a twenty-acre
peach orchard. Soon after the eyeless calf succumbed, a quarter of
Bennett's peach orchard also died. Bennett called the operators of
Nuclear One, who soon visited his farm with a representative of the
local agricultural extension service. They told him his problems were
from winterkill. According to Bennett, a Louisiana State University
horticulturist named Dr. Earl Puls added "poor management" and "an
extremely high population of nematodes" to the list of causes. Puls,
who visited the farm "for about one hour," said his findings were
"conclusive in ruling out any type of nuclear radiation."[12]
Puls's report was reminiscent of official studies done of animal
problems at Lloyd Mixon's ranch near Rocky Flats and of official
disclaimers at Vermont Yankee and Nine Mile Point. "I've been raising
peaches for more than thirty years now," Bennett told us in an
interview, "and there was just one year, back in the 1950s, when we
had no crop. Now this fellow comes from some university, spends an
hour here and tells me I'm mismanaging my orchards and don't know what
I'm talking about. Well, I'll tell you this. We haven't lost
anything in this heat and drought. And that plant's been shut down
for a long time now [for repairs] and ever since it's been shut down,
why, we've had as good a year as any."
After the death of his eyeless calf, Bennett reported a rash of
reproductive problems in his cow herd, and a drop in the hatching rate
of chicken eggs laid at his farm. A laboratory confirmed the problem
with the eggs, but declined to name a cause.
There were no monitoring devices at Bennett's farm. But NRC records
did confirm that Nuclear One dumped an abnormal amount of radioactive
liquid into nearby Lake Dardanelle in the summer and fall of 1976,
when the eyeless calf might have been most vulnerable. "Their
problems corresponded to mine as far as time was concerned," Bennett
told us. "Leaks and spills and releases and filtering problems. . . .
They did everything wrong about the time the calf was born without any
eyeballs."[13]
NRC records confirmed the releases. But the commission's Jack
Donohew said the levels were "a fraction" of what could cause
"biological mutations." He told the {Arkansas Gazette} the fact that
Bennett's animal problems surfaced at the same time as the radioactive
releases was "probably just a coincidence."[14]
------
1. Jane Lee, interview, March 1980.
2. Affidavits at Fisher Farm, Etters, Pennsylvania.
3. Charles Conley, interview, March 1980.
4. Laura T. Hammel, "Three Mile Island's Second Accident: How Government
Failed," {Baltimore News-American}, July 20, 1980 (hereafter cited as
"Second Accident").
5. Horst Leipold, interview, May 1981; See also, L. O. Gilmore and N. S.
Feccheimer, "Congenital Abnormalities in Cattle and Their General
Etiological Factors," {Journal of Dairy Science} 52, No. 11, pp.
1831-1836.
6. Karl Z. Morgan, interview, May 1981.
7. Helen Caldicott, interview, March 1980. We talked with Dr. Caldicott
just before her appearance on a nationally televised panel in
Harrisburg. The occasion was the accident's first anniversary. When
asked about the general rash of animal problems in the area, one
pronuclear panelist blamed "milk fever" and advised giving the cows in
question "a swift kick."
8. Susan Green, "Yankee: The People and the Plant," {Vermonter}, December
7, 1980 (hereafter cited as "Vermont Yankee"); and David Riley, "Big
Power in a Small Town," {Country Journal}, April 1980. We did
follow-up interviews with most of the people mentioned in these
articles and found the accounts to be quite similar to those around
TMI.
9. Nancy Weber, interview, April 1981. See also, "Bovine Blues," {The
Waste Paper}, the Sierra Club, spring 1980, and "Radioactive Milk?"
winter 1981.
10. Jack Anderson and Les Whitten, "Washington Merry-Go-Round," November 1,
1977, November 16, 1977, and April 17, 1979 (hereafter cited as
"Merry-Go-Round"). Also, Howard Rosenberg, interview, May 1981.
Anderson and Whitten's November 1, 1977, column, entitled "White Clouds
Over Pa.," was the one banned in some western Pennsylvania newspapers.
11. Carol Matlack, and Ginger Shiras, "Farmer Near Plant Reports Calf
Deformed, Trees Died," {Arkansas Gazette}, June 2, 1979, p. 1-A
(hereafter cited as "Farmer"). (We first found Bennett's story in an
Associated Press story, "Farmer Thinks Nuclear Plant Is Cause of His
Plight," {Columbus Dispatch}, September 23, 1979. Our thanks to
Phyllis Wasserman for sending us that and many other clippings.)
12. {Arkansas Gazette}, October 17 and November 1, 1979.
13. Herschel Bennett interview, October 1980. Herschel Bennett died under
mysterious circumstances as we were writing this book. He was
investigating the outtake pipes at Nuclear One and somehow fell into
twelve feet of water and drowned. There was just one witness to the
drowning. No autopsy was performed. Bill Peters, letter to authors,
November 13, 1980; and, Bill Peters, interview, November 1980.
14. Matlack and Shiras, "Farmer"; See also, {On the Record: Operations
and Reported Incidents of Arkansas Nuclear One} (People's Action for
Safe Energy, 401 Watson, Fayetteville, AR 72701).
------
The Reactors' Safety Record
The spreading fear among farmers had its political costs. Such
fears--plus economic concerns--prompted the town of Eugene, Oregon, to
vote down, in 1966, a reactor project planned nearby.
Through the late sixties and early seventies a small but dedicated
group of concerned citizens around the country devoted thousands of
dollars and years of effort to dragging the industry through the
licensing process and the courts, trying to stop the reactors or at
least make them safer. In so doing they laid the foundation for a
social movement.
By the early seventies concern had spread, particularly in areas
where the plants were being built. An amalgam of traditionally
conservative farmers, fishing people, and small-town residents joined
with nationally organized nuclear opponents. In 1976 the first
coordinated civil disobedience actions took place at the Seabrook
reactor site on the New Hampshire seacoast. Operating with nonviolent
tactics, a coalition called the Clamshell Alliance helped organize a
series of occupations that captured the imagination of environmental
activists around the U.S. By the summer of 1978, when the Clamshell
attracted some twenty thousand nuclear opponents to the Seabrook site,
scores of occupations had taken place around the country, and a
national antinuclear network was in place. A movement had grown to
stop the reactor industry that echoed the one aimed at atmospheric
testing two decades earlier.[15]
By the spring of 1979 the peaceful atom was in serious financial
straits. The Arab oil embargo of 1973 had sent fuel prices soaring,
which by all expectations should have made atomic energy more
competitive. Instead it sent the cost of the reactors themselves
soaring, at a rate far higher than the cost increases in coal burners.
Electricity prices also rose sharply, prompting American consumers to
use far less. That, in turn, helped undercut the demand for new
reactors, which fell further because of public pressure and a loss of
faith in the technology.[16] Orders fell drastically, from forty-one
in 1973 and twenty-six in 1974, to four in 1975, three in 1976, four
in 1977, and two in 1978. Cancellations quickly outnumbered orders.
In 1978 the number of domestic reactors on line, on order or under
construction dropped to 197, lowest since 1972.[17]
And there were other problems. In 1966 the Fermi fast breeder,
which the UAW had fought to the Supreme Court, very nearly caused a
devastating radioactive release. Starting on October 5, 1966, the
reactor hovered on the brink of a catastrophic meltdown for an entire
month. Its operators secretly alerted local police and officials in
Detroit, forty miles north, that a mass evacuation might be necessary.
The disaster was barely averted.[18]
Eleven years later two workmen at the Tennessee Valley Authority's
Browns Ferry plant near Decatur, Alabama, set the plant's wiring
system on fire. The workers had been using a candle to check for air
leaks and had set some insulation into flames. By the time the fire
was out, $100 million in damage had been done.[19]
By 1979 sloppy reactor construction, poor design, and inept
operation had become a national scandal. That year's NRC records
revealed more than twenty-three hundred operating errors, including a
failure of control rods at Browns Ferry; a temporary blackout in the
control room of a power plant in Florida; the surprise development of
a steam bubble in another Florida reactor; and the blowout of a
coolant pump at Arkansas Nuclear One, near Herschel Bennett's farm.
New York's Fitzpatrick II--where Nancy Weber's cows were dying--listed
eighty-eight incidents of its own.[20] There were other incidents as
well: one reactor cooling system had been hooked up to the plant's
drinking supply. At another plant a basketball wrapped in tape had
been used to plug a defective pipe.[21]
Through the end of 1979, the allowable average dose to residents
near the plants remained at 170 millirems per year, a rate Drs. Gofman
and Tamplin calculated would guarantee an extra thirty-two thousand
deaths per year. And methods of measuring radioactive releases had
not been systematically improved despite the recommendations of the
Shapp Commission. If anything, standards were regressing.
In 1975, for example, excessive strontium 90 radiation was found in
milk at a farm near the Shippingport plant. The following year,
monitoring at that farm was discontinued.[22]
In October of 1977 Ernest Sternglass charged that strontium
emissions from the Millstone Nuclear Power Station at Waterford,
Connecticut, were extraordinarily high, and had led to an increased
rate of cancer.[23] Soon thereafter the NRC eliminated the
requirement that utilities collect strontium 90 data. Budgetary
reasons were cited.[24]
Also that fall the General Accounting Office released a report
charging that the EPA's national radiation monitoring program did not
measure exposure for 40 percent of the American people, "and provides
only educated guesses for the remaining 60%." The GAO warned that
"levels of radiation are increasing which affect not only the health
of the current population, but of future generations because of
genetic damage." Federal agencies lacked resources, staff, and know-
how to deal with the problem, said the GAO. Environmental Protection
Agency policy "may not be the result of public need, but rather
reflects a crisis-oriented approach to the problem."[25] Despite the
warning, the Reagan administration in 1981 drastically cut the EPA's
radiation monitoring program well below the levels cited as inadequate
by the GAO.
But crisis was something the industry was saying could not happen.
Despite the near-catastrophes at Fermi and Browns Ferry, reactor
manufacturers, utilities, and their supporters in government continued
to assure the public that an accident was next to impossible. In 1976
an MIT professor named Norman Rasmussen issued a major study
indicating that the odds against a major meltdown by 1980 were on the
order of one in twenty thousand. Sponsored by the NRC, his report was
hailed by the industry as the ultimate confirmation of nuclear reactor
safety.[26]
But in January of 1979, under public attack, the NRC renounced the
Rasmussen report and in essence admitted that it did not know what the
odds on a reactor accident really were.[27]
In the spring of 1979 the GAO issued another study on radiation,
this one entitled {Areas Around Nuclear Facilities Should Be Better
Prepared for Radiological Emergencies}. Among other things the report
warned that evacuation plans around military and commercial plants
were deficient. "There does not appear to be a Federal policy on
providing nuclear accident response information to the general
public," charged the report. There was thus "only limited assurance
that the people near most fixed nuclear facilities will be adequately
protected from the radiological consequences of a serious nuclear
accident."
In fact part of the problem seemed to be active hostility on the
part of the utilities. At several locations, complained the GAO,
"facilities' operators were reluctant to provide public information
for fear of creating public alarm that could result in new or
prolonged current protest activities."[28] The GAO report, which had
been months in preparation, was dated March 30, 1979.
Two days earlier the "impossible" had begun to happen at
Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island Unit Two. The reactor had been
rushed into operation by its owners--The Metropolitan Edison Company-
-on December 28, 1978, apparently for tax purposes. Critics charged
it was not fully prepared to go into operation, and its early record
proved it. Within weeks after it opened, Unit Two had two valves
break during a turbine test. On February 1 a throttle valve began to
leak. A day later a pump blew a seal. Then another pump tripped off.
Finally, at 3:58 A.M. on March 28, 1979, alarms in the control room
began to flash. Feedwater pumps went off line. Control-room
operators misread their instruments and began making wrong decisions.
As the core lost water, heat and pressure began to rise. A valve
opened and didn't close. Radioactive water gushed onto the floor of
the containment building. The emergency core cooling system kicked
in, but an operator shut it off. A pump flooded an auxiliary building
with contaminated water, causing a steam release. Radiation escaped
through the containment. Radioactive water leaked into the
Susquehanna River.
Finally, a hydrogen bubble developed in the core, apparently
threatening an explosion. While America--and the world--hung with
bated breath, unknown quantities of radiation escaped into the air of
central Pennsylvania.[29]
------
15. For a documentary history of the early antireactor movement see Harvey
Wasserman, {Energy War: Reports from the Front} (Westport, Conn:
Lawrence Hill, 1979).
16. Charles Komonoff, {Power Plant Cost Escalation} (New York: Komonoff
Energy Associates, 1981).
17. A good reference for the history of reactor orders is the Atomic
Industrial Forum's "Historical Profile of U.S. Nuclear Power
Development," which can be gotten from the AIF at 7101 Wisconsin Ave.,
Washington, D.C. 20014.
18. Fuller, {We Almost Lost Detroit}.
19. U.S. Congress, Senate and House Joint Committee on Atomic Energy,
{Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant Fire,} 94th Cong., September 16, 1975.
20. {New York Times}, July 14, 1980, p. 26; see also, {1979: 2000 Nuclear
Mishaps} (Washington, D.C.: Critical Mass Energy Project, 1980).
21. Robert Pollard, ed., {The Nugget File} (Cambridge, Mass.: Union of
Concerned Scientists, 1979).
22. Anderson and Whitten, "Merry-Go-Round," November 16, 1977.
23. Ernest Sternglass, "Strontium-90 Levels in the Milk and Diet Near
Connecticut Nuclear Power Plants," October 27, 1977, and Sternglass,
"Cancer Mortality Changes Around Nuclear Facilities in Connecticut,"
presented at a congressional seminar on low-level radiation,
Washington, D.C., February 10, 1978. Sternglass's charge that high
emissions from the Millstone plant might have caused a rise in cancer
rates in nearby communities was given preliminary confirmation by early
indicators from a Connecticut State study. See Steve Fagin, "Radiation
Study Group Gets Preliminary Report on Cancer," New London {Day}, June
10, 1981, p. 2.
24. Joseph Hendrie, Chairman, NRC, letter to Dorothy B. Jones, First
Vice-President, Another Mother for Peace, December 3, 1978. In the
letter Hendrie says that by monitoring for Cs-137 the NRC could also
determine how much Sr-90 was being released. "The omission of
radiostrontium from the recommended program is not a monitoring issue,"
he said.
25. {New York Times}, September 15, 1977, p. A-1.
26. NRC, WASH-1400, October 1975.
27. NRC, "Statement on Risk Assessment and the Reactor Safety Study
Report," WASH-1400, in {Light of Risk Assessment Group Report}
(Washington, D.C.: NRC January 18, 1979).
28. GAO, {Areas Around Nuclear Facilities Should be Better Prepared for
Radiological Emergencies}, EMD-78-110 (Washington, D.C.: GAO, March
30, 1979), pp. 28-31.
29. There are numerous accounts of the TMI meltdown. One appears in
{Washington Post, Crisis: Three Mile Island} (Washington, D.C.: {The
Washington Post}, 1979) (hereafter: {Crisis}).
------
How Much Radiation?
First and foremost the utility, the NRC, and the industry strove to
minimize the public impression of how much radiation had escaped at
Three Mile Island and how dangerous it might be. As the AEC had done
in more than 250 bomb tests, and as the operators of the Windscale and
Rocky Flats facilities had also done, the owners of TMI now hastened
to assure the public that only negligible amounts of radiation had
escaped to the atmosphere, and that there was no reason to believe
anyone would be harmed.
The total emission from the accident, said Margaret Reilly of
Pennsylvania's Department of Radiation Protection, amounted to "a
gnat's eyelash." Despite the order from Pennsylvania governor Richard
Thornburgh--two days after the accident--that pregnant women and small
children abandon the immediate area, official press releases compared
the maximum possible exposure to a single X ray.[30]
But there was no denying that some reactor by-products had escaped.
Through a series of complex mathematical formulas the NRC estimated
that sixteen million curies of noble gases and fourteen curies of
radioactive iodine 131 had been added to the atmosphere. With complex
calculations involving the two million people within a fifty-mile
radius of TMI it was decided that each individual had received an
average dose of 1.4 millirems, a bare fraction of normal background
radiation. The maximum dose anyone could have gotten, added Reilly,
was seventy millirems--and that was "only for someone standing stark
naked at the plant gates for seven days."[31] Reilly's estimates did
not apply to inhalation or ingestion of radioactive gases or
particles.
Within months a presidential commission under the leadership of
Dartmouth College president George Kemeny confirmed the NRC findings.
"On the basis of present scientific knowledge," said the commission,
the radiation doses "were so small that there will be no detectable
additional cases of cancer, developmental abnormalities, or genetic
ill-health as a consequence of the accident at TMI." At worst just
one of the 325,000 people in the area who were eventually expected to
die of cancer could be said to have a "reasonable chance" of having
been affected by TMI radiation.[32]
Active supporters of atomic power went even further. In a series of
national advertisements Dr. Edward Teller claimed to have been "the
only victim of Three Mile Island." The nervous stress he suffered
from attacks by nuclear opponents on his favored industry, he said,
had led to a heart attack. As for fallout, Teller charged that the
risk was no different from living in a high mountain area near Denver,
where natural background radiation is higher than it is in central
Pennsylvania.
Teller did not specify whether this was calculated on living upwind
or downwind from Rocky Flats. But his point was clear. "There is a
{possibility} but not a probability that due to the TMI accident one
single person years from now might develop cancer."[33]
That conclusion was not universally shared. Karl Z. Morgan and
others soon charged that the amount of emissions had been
underestimated, and that specific pockets of population may well have
received very heavy doses--particularly in the town of Harrisburg,
which was downwind at key times during the accident.
The means of measuring plant emissions at TMI were essentially four:
monitors in the stacks to gauge how much radiation was escaping;
charcoal filters in the stacks which trapped some of that material for
later measurement; monitors nearby to estimate how much radiation had
reached into the general environment; and samplings of vegetation,
milk, and animal tissue from area farms and forests to estimate how
much radiation was being ingested by local animals. The definitive
results from each of these indicators is very much in dispute.
On April 12, for example, in the midst of the crisis, an NRC
official named Lake Barrett conceded that monitors in the plant stacks
"did not provide accurate readings of absolute quantities of
radioactivity released during the accident." High radiation levels,
said Barrett, had driven monitors "off scale" and rendered them
useless.[34]
In June, Albert Gibson, a Radiation Support section chief who
coauthored the NRC's final report on TMI emissions, confirmed the
problem. Testifying in front of the five NRC commissioners, Gibson
said, "All the radiation monitors in the vent stack, where as much as
80 percent of the radiation escaped, went off scale the morning of the
accident. The trouble with those monitors is they were never
contemplated for use in monitoring accidents like Three Mile Island."
Gibson explained there were three monitors in the vent stack and
five more in the pathways leading to it. All eight were at their
maximum levels the morning of the accident. It was impossible to tell
how much radiation really escaped. The monitors merely recorded a
minimum amount.
"So," asked Commissioner Victor Gilinsky, "we don't really know what
went up there? Up through the vent stack?"
"That's correct," Gibson confirmed.
Inside the building readings showed a minimum of a million millirems
per hour, a lethal dose. On site, the day of the accident, monitors
1000 feet from the vent stack showed levels of 365 millirems of beta
and gamma rays per hour. A helicopter directly over the vent stack
measured emissions three times as high. Even those measurements were
"very inconclusive," said Gibson. They showed dose rates "only at the
moments the measurements were made." Without full knowledge of
weather patterns, he admitted, "we don't know if they were made at the
appropriate locations."[35]
Thus Gibson had told his NRC superiors that one of the key methods
of measuring emissions--the stack monitors--had been essentially
useless during and after the accident.
But in a 1981 interview with us Gibson backtracked. "I don't want
your book to read too much into what I said to the commissioners," he
told us. "What I meant to say then was that {at the time of the
accident} we didn't know how much radiation was escaping. But later,
by measuring the charcoal filters in the stacks, we could estimate the
totals."
The NRC's second line of defense, Gibson told us, did work as it
should have. Charcoal filters in the plant stacks trapped a certain
percentage of the iodine 131 and other isotopes that were released
during the accident. "Had we known the accident was going to occur,
we would have had many more monitors in operation," Gibson said. "But
I have confidence the iodine concentrations released were
reasonable."[36]
However one preaccident NRC study had already questioned the
filters' performance and predictability under conditions involving
large quantities of moisture and noble gases.[37] A fall 1978 DOE
conference also discussed poor filter performance where moisture was
involved, predicting such problems as corrosion which could allow
radioactive material to escape and thus go undetected by later
measurement of the filters.[38] A later article in {Nuclear
Engineering} magazine said the filters may not have been of much use
anyway. Because of "an unusual amount of aqueous vapor," wrote Seo
Takeshi of Kyoto University's Nuclear Reactor Laboratory, "the
adsorbent capacity of the cartridges must have been rapidly
minimized." Their saturation resulted in low readings, for which the
NRC and the utility "did not make any corrections," a failure Takeshi
termed "inexcusable."[39]
The Kemeny commissioners were also concerned. "Due to improper use
before the accident," they concluded, filters in the auxiliary and
fuel handling buildings "did not perform as designed."[40]
And in fact, in April of 1979, the NRC's Harold Denton told a
Middletown news conference that at one point at least twenty stack
filters had been removed without being replaced. Thus "there was a
potential for bypass leakage through the filter space getting out
without being filtered." In other words radiation escaped because the
filters were not there to stop it.[41]
Thus the stack monitors and filters were almost completely
unreliable. But there was still the third line of defense--
environmental monitoring systems operated by Met Ed and the NRC.
These networks were built around a radiation reading device known as a
thermo-luminescent dosimeter (TLD) designed to measure gamma
radiation. The TLDs, said Albert Gibson, "gave us confirmation of the
levels we estimated to be leaking from the plant."[42]
But by all accounts the TLD program was also ineffective. For one
thing, they are designed to measure radiation exposures over a period
of months. "Real-time" monitors, which can more accurately measure
how much radiation is being released over shorter periods of time,
were not in use during the TMI accident, and had not been deployed by
the time of this writing, more than two years later. Second, the TLDs
read only gamma radiation. But large quantities of unrelated alpha-
and beta-emitters were also escaping from TMI, and there was no
equipment to monitor them. According to Dr. Carl Johnson of Colorado,
who worked for months to get information on alpha releases to compare
with those at Rocky Flats, "no data are to be found."[43]
The TLDs themselves were irregularly placed and unreliable. Because
of "poor maintenance," wrote Seo Takeshi, data for the crucial period
of March 31 to April 1 were "not reliable." From many sectors around
TMI "there are no data at all." And overall "estimates of the
collective dose and quantity of released radioactivity based on this
poor data cannot be accurate and should be considered under the actual
level."
In fact, Takeshi added, based on an August 1979 study by the NRC, as
much as sixty-four thousand curies of I-131 had been released, a
figure four thousand times what the public had been told, and a dose
capable of endangering the health of the local population.[44]
Thomas Gerusky, head of the state's Bureau of Radiation Protection,
confirmed that the monitoring equipment at TMI was "geared mainly for
routine accidents--little things. I think the thought was at the time
that if a major accident occurred, the monitoring could always be
extended. Of course, they found it couldn't."[45]
Both state and federal authorities acknowledged that in the first
two days of the accident--when approximately 80 percent of the
radiation was released--there were nowhere near enough TLDs around.
"We don't know if there were other releases early on, other than from
the stacks," Gerusky told {The} (Baltimore) {News-American}. "There
are still some questions of just how much I-131 was released early in
the accident." Next time, added Margaret Reilly, the authorities
would know that "it is nice to be lavish with TLDs." After all, she
said, TMI was a "dress rehearsal for an accident."[46]
The TLDs were sent primarily to two companies to be evaluated. One
was the Radiation Monitoring Corporation, a subsidiary of Philadelphia
Electric--one of the nation's most ardent promoters of atomic power.
The other was Teledyne Isotopes, a subsidiary of Teledyne Inc.--a Los
Angeles-based multinational corporation with some $400 million in
contracts with the nuclear-committed U.S. military. Both companies
thus had clear financial interests in defending atomic power.[47]
Doses read on Metropolitan Edison TLDs showed less radiation than
those from the NRC, a discrepancy the Kemeny Commission discussed but
could not explain.[48]
And one particular reading threw a shadow over the entire
evaluation. In the course of sifting through the measurements, the
Kemeny staff found a station 96 miles to the northwest of TMI with
comparatively high readings. The absolute dose was very small, but in
comparative terms it seemed to indicate an abnormal radiation level in
Harrisburg. The commission dismissed the high reading as inaccurate,
theorizing that the dose had accumulated on that particular TLD
because of improper handling. They labeled it the "northwest
anomaly."[49]
But in fact the "anomaly" seemed to confirm one of the most crucial
charges of all--that the radiation from the plant had not spread
evenly over the area, but had in fact blown in a narrow path to the
northwest, toward Harrisburg--some ten miles away.
The last line of official monitoring rested with vegetation, milk,
and animal surveys. According to John Nikoloff, a spokesman for the
state Agriculture Department, "hundreds" of milk samples were taken
after the accident. Overall, he told us, no concentrations were found
exceeding forty-one picocuries per liter of radioactive iodine--far
below the state's maximum limit of 100 picocuries per liter. "Nothing
we saw indicated any serious problem," Nikoloff said.[50]
But Metropolitan Edison's own readings indicated a finding of 105
picocuries per liter in goats' milk at the Louise Hardison farm, less
than two miles from the plant.[51] And {The} (Baltimore) {News-
American} reported that an independent survey conducted by an
associate professor of nuclear engineering at nearby Pennsylvania
State University produced seven readings of twelve hundred picocuries
or more per liter.[52] The findings led Thomas Gerusky to tell {The
News American} that "there might have been more iodine out there than
we thought."[53]
There were other contradictions. Margaret Reilly told us the state
tested a number of animals for radioactivity and "found nothing."[54]
But the U.S. Bureau of Fish and Wildlife at Harrisburg also conducted
a survey and reported levels of I-131 in rabbit thyroids considerably
higher than what had been previously recorded. "We put our trust in
the NRC and Met Ed," said the bureau's Norman Chupp, "and it seems
like they're not interested in the animals we're interested in. . . .
Who knows if the results would have been more significant if we had
gotten out earlier?"[55]
A second study, conducted by four faculty members of the nearby
Millersville State College around the same time as the DOA survey,
seemed to confirm the high iodine findings elsewhere. The study used
meadow voles--a small rodent--as a control and found high levels of
I-131 in the thyroids of animals caught near the plant.[56]
Meanwhile an article in {Science} indicated that extraordinary
readings had been registered as far away as Albany-Troy.[57] Another
independent monitor noted high readings in Maine following the
accident.[58]
Throughout the TMI area local residents complained of a strange,
"metallic" taste in their mouths. "You can tell it's in the air,"
Charles Conley told us at his farm near TMI. "You can taste it. We
all did."[59]
TMI's unhappy neighbors also created a run on Geiger counters, which
many soon claimed were showing abnormal levels throughout central
Pennsylvania. The trend prompted Margaret Reilly to "joke" to {The}
(Baltimore) {News-American} that the state had been considering buying
the instruments off the shelves to stop the flow of alarmed complaints
about high releases.[60]
In an April 1980 panel sponsored by the New York Academy of
Sciences, Pennsylvania's Thomas Gerusky emphasized that "thousands of
samples of milk, air, water, produce, soil, vegetation, fish, river
sediment, and silt in the TMI vicinity were analyzed." But precise
dose estimates were "valid only for individuals living within three
miles of TMI," he said, "because most of the sampling took place
within that area."[61] Reilly added in a June 1981 interview that
though they "posed no health hazard," noble gas releases pouring out
of TMI on Thursday, the night after the accident began, were so heavy
that radiological experiments being conducted at a building in
Harrisburg had to be discontinued because of radioactive
interference.[62]
Few people were more worried about those releases than NRC chairman
Joseph Hendrie. On Friday morning, March 30, at the height of the
crisis, Hendrie got word of a burst release over the stacks. It
indicated emissions of "about 1200 millirem per hour which seems to
calculate out, by the time the plume comes to the ground, where people
would get it, would be about 120 millirem per hour. Now that is still
below EPA evacuation trigger levels; on the other hand, it certainly
is a pretty husky dose rate to be having off-site."[63]
At least a portion of that "husky dose rate" was apparently coming
down in Harrisburg, where its effects on local babies would be lethal.
------
30. Hammel, "Second Accident."
31. Margaret Reilly, interview, March 1981. In a June 1980 interview
Reilly told us the 1.4 millirem average dose estimate was "vague" and
"probably meaningless. Nonetheless it was used by Edward Teller and
numerous utilities in pronuclear advertising.
32. Kemeny Report, p. 34.
33. Edward Teller, "The Overblown Fear of Radiation," {Philadelphia
Inquirer,} 1979.
34. Lake Barrett, "Preliminary Estimates of Radioactivity Releases from
Three Mile Island," memorandum for distribution, NRC, April 12, 1979,
p. 1.
35. Thomas O'Toole, "NRC Told Radiation Leak at A-Plant Off the Gauges,"
{Washington Post}, June 22, 1979. p. A-3.
36. Albert Gibson, interview, February 1981.
37. D. W. Underhill and D. W. Moeller, {The Effects of Temperature,
Moisture, Concentration, Pressure and Mass Transfer on the Absorption
of Krypton and Xenon on Activated Carbon}, NUREG-0678 (Washington,
D.C.: Nuclear Regulatory Commission).
38. C. E. Graves, et al., "Operational Maintenance Problems with Iodine
Adsorbers in Nuclear Power Plant Service," in {Proceedings}, 15th DOE
Nuclear Air Cleaning Conference, Boston, August 7-10, 1978, pp. 428-444.
39. Seo Takeshi, "NRC's Gross Underestimation of the Radioactive Releases
and Population Doses During the TMI-2 Accident" (hereafter cited as
"NRC's Underestimation"). We saw this article, a version of which
later appeared in {Nuclear Engineering}, magazine, as an unpublished
manuscript.
40. {Kemeny Report,} p. 30.
41. Richard Roberts, "Iodine Level from N-Plant Exceeds Limit," Harrisburg
{Patriot}, April 18, 1979.
42. Gibson interview.
43. Carl Johnson, interview, May 1980. In a June 1981 interview Margaret
Reilly confirmed the lack of alpha monitoring, but said that since "zip
radiation" had been found in reactor coolant, it was unlikely any had
escaped. Reilly also told us that methods of gauging how much
radiation had escaped by taking an inventory of the core were
"essentially worthless."
44. Takeshi, "NRC's Underestimation"; and Bruce Mulholt, "Testimony in
Support of Off-Site Contentions of the Environmental Coalition of
Nuclear Power," NRC, TMI-1 Restart Hearings, Docket 50-289, March 16,
1981, Table 5.
45. Hammel, "Second Accident."
46. Ibid.
47. Information on the corporate underpinnings of Teledyne Isotopes and
Radiation Management came from the Corporate Responsibility Project,
475 Riverside Dr., Room 566, New York City 10115. Teledyne's defense
contracts were cited in David Gold, "Defense Department's Top 100,"
{CEP Newsletter}, November 1980. Ownership of Radiation Management can
be traced through Standard and Poor's 1981 index. The president of
Philadelphia Electric is also the president of Radiation Management.
48. Health Physics and Dosimetry Task Group, Kemeny Commission, {Report of
the Public Health and Safety Task Force on Health Physics and
Dosimetry} (Washington, D.C., October 1979), p. 133.
49. Ibid., p. 136.
50. John Nikoloff, interview, March 1980.
51. Metropolitan Edison Company, "Three Mile Island Nuclear Station
Radiological Environmental Monitoring Program: Annual Report for
1979," April 1980, p. 19.
52. Hammel, "Second Accident."
53. Ibid.
54. Reilly interview.
55. Hammel, "Second Accident."
56. R. William Field, et al., "Iodine 131 in Thyroids of the Meadow Vole
({Microtus Pennsylvanicus}) in the Vicinity of the Three Mile Island
Nuclear Generating Plant." We used an unpublished version of this
article.
57. Martin Wahlen, et al., "Radioactive Plume From the Three Mile Island
Accident: Xenon 133 in Air at a Distance of 375 Kilometers,"
{Science}, February 8, 1980, Vol. 207 pp. 639-640.
58. Thomas Pawlick, "The Silent Toll," {Harrowsmith}, June 1980.
59. Conley interview.
60. Hammel, "Second Accident."
61. Thomas H. Moss and David L. Sills, eds., "The Three Mile Island Nuclear
Accident: Lessons and Implications," in {Annals} of the New York
Academy of Sciences, April 24, 1981, pp. 56-57.
62. Margaret Reilly, interview, June 1981. Reilly said the building
affected was the Evangelical Press Building, where the state maintained
a laboratory.
63. {Pittsburgh Post-Gazette}, April 16, 1979, p. 1.
------
* * * * * * *
[part 14 of 18]
13
Animals Died at Three Mile Island
Dr. Robert Weber fits the Norman Rockwell image of a country
veterinarian. Of gentle countenance but powerfully built, Weber wore
his western-style hat and handlebar mustache into the lavishly paneled
hearing room of the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission, where,
in March of 1980, public testimony was being heard on the accident at
TMI.
Though the intricacies of debate over curies, millirems, and
isotopes meant little to Weber, he had a pretty clear idea of what was
happening to the animals of his clients. And when the PUC finally
held hearings, just shy of a year after the accident, Weber came
straight to the point. Ever since the accident, he said, he was
getting calls to treat stillbirths among pigs near TMI at the rate of
two per week. Normally he treated two such cases per year. He had
been practicing out of Mechanicsburg since the 1940s and had never
seen an epidemic like it. Hormones that usually aided the pigs in
dilation had failed to work.
And that spring of 1980 he was having to do two caesarean sections
per week on local goats and sheep, also an extraordinary rate.
Weber was immediately challenged by a lawyer from Metropolitan
Edison, who demanded to know if Weber was saying that radiation from
TMI had caused the problem.
"I am not prepared to say it is radiation," the veterinarian
replied. "I do not know what the cause is."
But outside in the hall Weber told us that if ever animals had
served as radiation monitors in a nuclear accident, this was the time.
"A lot of these problems are happening right in the path of TMI," he
said. "I won't say for sure it's the power plant that's causing it.
But I can't imagine what else is going on down there." In fact the
"heavy run" of birthing problems among pigs came "right after the
plant went bad. I don't know if we were in some kind of streak. The
samples haven't come up with any particular diseases that might be
causing it.
Weber also told us he had seen plenty of cases to support the
affidavits Jane Lee had accumulated. "Since 1976 I've been noticing
cows that have gone down after they had their calves and couldn't
walk. They didn't have typical milk fever, but we don't know what
they did have. They were just down and we had to get rid of at least
two of them. Everything I used just wouldn't work." He added that
things had gotten significantly worse after the accident, including an
increase in Hodgkin's disease among dogs, and widespread complaints
that deer, pheasant, and other game had all but disappeared from the
area.[1]
Charles Conley confirmed that pattern. "My daddy bought this farm
in 1912," he told {The} (Baltimore) {News-American}. "I've had more
trouble in two years than he had in all the years he farmed."[2]
Conley noted that soon after the accident the bark peeled off a
maple tree in his front yard. "My wheat crop was not good that year,"
he complained. "The fruit's been small and some of the vegetables
just plain curled up. Birds disappeared too. After the accident,
there wouldn't be any of them swarming around behind the plows like
they always do. We used to have all kinds here. Used to be you'd
have twenty-five robins out there in the backyard. This year [1980]
I've only seen one. I found a bunch of starlings that just flew into
the hay mow and died. And my brother, he found a robin that just
keeled over in a peach basket. That thing killed the snakes, too. We
don't have any copperheads around here, but the garter and black
snakes, you used to see a lot of them. Now you don't."[3]
At Jane Lee's house the number of complaints from farmers reporting
animal problems increased dramatically after the accident. Down the
road at Emma Whitehall's--which in 1978 had reported 290 duck eggs
that would not hatch--a nanny goat inexplicably aborted twins eight
days after the accident. Located less than three miles from TMI, the
farm soon thereafter saw two other pregnant nannies die mysteriously,
along with twenty-six newborn rabbits and nineteen guinea pigs.
At the nearby James Fitzgerald farm, a colt was born deformed. At
the Mary Ann Fisher place, across the river in Middletown, a litter of
kittens inexplicably died. At Fran Cain's dog kennel, a quarter mile
from the reactor, a poodle was born with no eyes.[4]
One after another the complaints of sterility; stillbirths;
malformations; disease; unexplained deaths; disappearance of game,
snakes, and wild insects; and wilting of vegetation arrived in
increasing numbers in the wake of the accident.
------
1. Robert Weber, interview, March 1980.
2. Hammel, "Second Accident."
3. Charles Conley, interview, March 1980.
4. Jane Lee, interview, March 1980.
------
Pennsylvania's Official Findings
In mid-May the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (DOA) decided
to conduct a study of its own. The department's information director,
John Nikoloff, told us that the survey was done in two days--May 23
and 24--and that it involved ten department staff, two of whom were
veterinarians. Nikoloff said that one hundred person-hours were
devoted to interviewing one hundred farmers. According to the survey
only five of them complained of abnormal problems.
Nikoloff emphasized that the study, which was untitled, was informal
and "for internal use only." It was not sophisticated or thorough,
but rather a "spot check" that was done by compiling a rough list of
the dairy farms within five miles of the plant and arranging for
interviewers to stop off--unannounced--at other farms along the way
"if they had time."
Nikoloff added that the department had done a few autopsies, but not
as many as they would have liked. "In a way we're stuck," he said,
"because most of the animals that get reported with problems are dead
and gone before we can autopsy them." The dozen-odd animals the state
had tested had shown no evidence of radiation damage. Thus on the
basis of that and the small number of complaints Nikoloff and the DOA
had concluded that there was "no evidence that would indicate any
animal problems in the area that had anything to do with radiation
from TMI."[5]
In April of 1980, more than a year after the accident, {The New York
Times} editorial board relied on the DOA survey in a strongly worded
opinion piece called "Nuclear Fabulists," which dealt largely with the
growing controversy over human infant-mortality rates near TMI. The
"reports of bizarre deformities among farm animals and wildlife" had
been discredited, they wrote. The problems "were attributed to viral
infections or to feed and poor nutrition; there was no evidence of
radiation damage."[6]
But three months after the editorial appeared, an investigative team
from {The} (Baltimore) {News-American} reported that the DOA study was
"worthless." The concerns of local farmers had been "vastly
underreported." The state's "data erred. Their conclusions were
wrong."
In a four-page feature written primarily by investigative reporter
Laura T. Hammel, {The News-American} charged that not 5 percent, but
at least 40 percent of the farmers listed in the DOA survey complained
of problems with plants and animals that dated not just after the
accident, but to the opening of TMI-1.
Dairy farmer Joseph Conley (a cousin to Charles, whom we interviewed
earlier) told {The News-American} that beginning in 1974, the leaves
on his grape arbor turned white, limbs on his walnut trees shriveled
and died, and, in late 1978, just before the opening of TMI-2, his
cattle became jumpy.
Shortly after the 1979 accident two of his cows aborted, ten of his
calves died soon after birth, his cats wouldn't breed, and his own
family began acting so sickly and sluggish that he packed up all his
belongings and moved to another county. But the DOA listed him as
having "no problems."
Richard Bailey, who raised cattle at York Haven, thirteen miles from
TMI, was also listed as having no problems. But he told {The News-
American} that within two months after the accident he lost six new
calves in a row. A seventh was born a midget. Prior to the accident
he had lost only ten calves to stillbirths in more than thirty years
of farming.
Russell Whisler of Manchester, who was also listed in the DOA survey
as having no problems, said he had lost two ewes and four lambs from
abnormal pregnancies following the accident--and that the state knew
it. "They asked us what we had, and we told them," he said.
Jane Ressler of Elizabethtown, who complained of four horses
suffering stiff, swollen joints just after the accident, was also
listed as having no problems. She told {The News-American}, "We've
had lots of problems. I never talked to anyone from the government,
and neither did my husband. But I would have liked to."[7]
According to reporter Hammel, at least thirty-five farmers listed in
the survey said their views had been misrepresented. At least three
said they told state inspectors they were having problems and were
listed as having none. And a number of animal inventories in the
survey were grossly inaccurate.
Several nearby farmers who had severe problems were never contacted
at all. One was Robert Ziegler of Newberry Township, directly across
the river from TMI. Two days after the accident Ziegler's hogs
refused to leave their pen and his chickens began flying wildly around
their coop. By mid-May twenty-seven chickens and eleven hogs were
dead of inexplicable causes. At harvesttime his corn was mushy and
half-formed, his oat crop was half its normal yield, and the bark had
peeled off a twenty-three-year-old walnut tree. Yet Ziegler was not
in the survey, while some farms eighty miles away were.[8]
The reason for that, explained secretary of agriculture, Penrose
Hallowell, was to provide a "spot check" to see if "there was a
difference between the farms farther away and those close in."
Hallowell also said some of the faraway spreads were included because
the department "wanted to hit the biggest dairy farms in the area, and
they were generally outside the five-mile limit."[9]
Yet the survey did include eleven families who were not farmers at
all, and it listed as having "no problems" the fifty-eight-acre
Manchester spread of Barbara and Homer Meyers, who said they had "no
contact" with state surveyors.[10]
Nikoloff explained that the survey did include some animal owners
who were not farmers. And that some farmers who were being surveyed
may not have known it, because the work was being done by inspectors
who also routinely test milk, feed, and fertilizer in the area.
As for the large numbers of farmers who complained about additional
problems, Nikoloff told us he suspected that many of them might have
come to mind in the year between the state's survey and {The News-
American} investigation.
So we asked him why the DOA had not done a follow-up. "We requested
no funding for further study," he replied. "The radiation experts
advised us there was no need to do it based on the amount of radiation
in the air. They told us we'd be wasting the taxpayers' time and
money."[11]
Among the farmers themselves there was disbelief and anger. "We
aren't going to get any answers," concluded Vance Fisher, a sixty-
year-old Etters cattle farmer whose livestock had been dying. "Anyone
who works for the state is afraid to say anything against TMI."
"I have trouble believing anything they say," added Pat Baum, a
dairy farmer from Elizabethtown. "They didn't know what they were
doing when it all began, and I don't think they know what they're
doing now."[12]
"By the time we came around," {News-American} reporter Hammel told
us, "the hostility was so bad that I had to prove I was not from the
state before the farmers would talk to us."
Once they did, Hammel said she encountered "a lot of people who
didn't know each other who were telling us startlingly similar
stories."[13]
------
5. John Nikoloff, interview, March 1981; and Hammel, "Second Accident."
6. {New York Times}, "Nuclear Fabulists," April 18, 1980. The editorial
read in full:
"Those scare stories about radiation damage from the accident at
Three Mile Island look increasingly far-fetched. Federal officials
have said all along that little radiation escaped, posing virtually no
threat to public health. Their judgment has been supported by all
major investigations of the accident. But rumors of frightening
physical damage to human and animal infants persist.
"None of these allegations have held up under careful scrutiny by
disinterested authorities. The only real health damage detected so far
has been psychological. For example a report made public yesterday
says that many of the community's residents remained distressed for
months and resorted to sedatives and alcohol for relief. Their anxiety
could only have been heightened by the `experts' and critics who have
issued alarming statements about radiation hazards based on scant or
distorted data.
"The most worrisome charge has been that radiation from the crippled
reactor has already caused an increase in infant mortality and thyroid
defects in newborn babies. Those fears were effectively laid to rest
by state and Federal health investigators, as reported in {The Times}
by Jane Brody. The concern about infant mortality was based largely on
raw statistics showing an increase in the number of infant deaths
within a ten-mile radius of the reactor after the accident. But those
numbers in themselves are meaningless; there was also an increase in
the total number of births. The {rate} of infant deaths remained
normal.
"Similarly, the concern over thyroid disease was based on
unevaluated statistics showing, in three counties, a possibly
abnormal number of children born with thyroid defects. But on
investigation, most of these cases were attributed to hereditary
defects or other circumstances predating the nuclear accident. Four
counties equally close to the reactor, or closer, had no such cases at
all.
"Reports of bizarre deformities among farm animals and wildlife have
also circulated. Worried farmers and at least one veterinarian have
described animals born with legs or eyes missing, stillbirths,
spontaneous abortions, defective bone structures and sudden
deaths. Many blame the reactor. But the Pennsylvania Department of
Agriculture investigated 100 farms within five miles of the reactor
last May and found only five with any unusual problems among livestock.
These were attributed to viral infections or to feed and poor
nutrition; there was no evidence of radiation damage.
"Several long-term studies are still under way. But for now the
public can draw considerable reassurance from these negative findings.
It is not only apologists for the nuclear industry who say that
radiation damage has been negligible; so do health officials whose
main concern is the public's safety, and agriculture officials whose
mission is protecting farmers and livestock.
"What is not at all reassuring is the behavior of `experts' who have
inflamed fears by dealing recklessly with statistics. Dr. Gordon
MacLeod, who was Pennsylvania's Secretary of Health at the time of the
accident but was later forced to resign by the governor, irresponsibly
publicized some of the raw data suggesting the existence of health
problems. And Dr. Ernest Sternglass, a perennial campaigner against
nuclear power, is accused by neutral health authorities of mishandling
data to demonstrate health damage. Even in nuclear fables there are
people who cry wolf."
7. Hammel, "Second Accident."
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Nikoloff interview.
12. Hammel, "Second Accident."
13. Laura T. Hammel, interview, January 1981.
------
The NRC Steps In
By the summer of 1980 stories about Dr. Weber, Jane Lee, Charles
Conley, and other area farmers had begun to seep into the media.[14]
It was precisely the kind of publicity the industry could least stand.
The reactors were operating at roughly 65 percent of full capacity;
originally the industry had promised 80 percent. And with just
seventy plants on line, atomic power was producing a net of just 9
percent of the U.S. electricity supply, and less than 2 percent of all
U.S. energy. After thirty-five years of research and development, $40
billion in taxpayer subsidies, and more than $100 billion in utility
investments, commercial reactors were providing American consumers
with less usable energy than firewood.[15]
In the wake of TMI came a federal moratorium on licensing. With no
new orders coming in, construction costs soaring, electricity demand
on the downswing, and the waste question still unresolved, the
economic underpinnings of the peaceful atom seemed shakier than ever.
And now the political pillars were crumbling as well. On May 6,
just five weeks after the TMI accident, more than 100,000 nuclear
opponents gathered at the national capital in Washington to protest
the radioactive dangers highlighted by the mishap. On September 23
more than 200,000 gathered in lower Manhattan for an antinuclear rally
and concert that was the biggest American political gathering of the
1970s. Wherever atomic reactors were operating or being built, local
citizens were working against them.
But nuclear power was not being abandoned. Those still in the
industry had billions of dollars invested. First and foremost, it
seemed necessary to dispel the idea that TMI had caused anyone any
harm. And that meant the animal question. Just as Nevada sheep had
become the first visible victims of the 1950s bomb tests, so the
goats, pigs, cows, and cats of central Pennsylvania seemed destined to
play the role at the dawn of the 1980s.
And like the AEC before it, the state of Pennsylvania stood firm.
"There's not a shred of evidence that there's been a radiation-
connected problem," Governor Richard Thornburgh said of the farmers'
complaints. "If you could tell me of a single instance of a
radiation-connected problem, then we'd want to take a look."[16]
But resistance at the state level to pursue the question further
than the limited DOA study remained firm. "There was not enough
radiation to give any evidence of any need to do such a study," said
Robert Furrer, a management analyst for the DOA. "To do more study
would have been chasing a ghost," added Nunzio Palladino, dean of
Pennsylvania State College of Engineering. "I wouldn't put a nickel
toward more study."[17] In 1981 Palladino became chairman of the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Despite such opinions the NRC teamed up with the EPA to study the
animals around Three Mile Island in the spring of 1980. Headed by the
NRC's Germain LaRoche, the task force set about contacting those
farmers who had complained of problems with their animals. By the
fall of 1980 their investigation was complete and their conclusions
firm--"no reasonable connection" could be made between radiation from
TMI and damage to any nearby animals.
Among other things, the report said symptoms in cat and kitten
deaths and reproductive problems "suggest infectious diseases."
Problems in sheep, goats, and cows "suggest a nutritional deficiency."
The tendency of local cows to fall down also seemed to be a dietary
problem. Hatching problems with duck and goose eggs "could have come
about because of fluctuation in incubator temperatures where
incubators were used."
Overall the report concluded that "while many of the symptoms
reported are characteristic of radiation sickness," many were also
"diagnosed as common occurrences in domestic and wild animals." As a
whole "no relationship can be established between the operation of TMI
or the accidental releases of radioactivity and the reported health
effects."[18]
Published in October of 1980, the study immediately became national
news. {The New York Times} accepted it as definitive proof that the
farmers' claims were without basis. In November the {Times} printed
an editorial entitled "Goat Stories from Three Mile Island," which
stated with confidence that the "findings are clear. None of the
plant or animal defects can be attributed either to the accident or to
normal nuclear operations at Three Mile Island. Many of the animal
defects, in fact, were traced to the carelessness of the protesting
farmers." Unequivocally revealing the paper's point of view, the
editorial said reproductive problems in one goat had been solved with
"a new buck." Horses that failed to breed had "a chronic infection."
Calves that "could not stand or walk without staggering" suffered
"nutritional deficiencies." Damage to plants and trees was "traced to
disease and insects, not radiation."
Thus, said the {Times}, "the horror stories evaporate." The TMI
accident was "highly dramatic and frightening," but it "caused no
defects in Pennsylvania's woods and barnyards."[19] The {Times}'s
editorial was reproduced and distributed by nuclear-committed
utilities around the country. It was taken by many as a final word
that the farmers near TMI were simply off base.
But apparently neither the {Times}'s editorial board nor much of the
major media had read the NRC/EPA report carefully. Its authors had
warned in their introduction that the survey "should in no way be
thought of as an epidemiological study." There were, they said,
numerous cases "that could not be investigated in depth because not
enough data were available." There was also a "lack of background
information" on many diseases in the area.
According to Germain LaRoche, whom we contacted by telephone in
early 1981, the authors of the report "did not survey animals. We
surveyed people and reports from the lab. We got a list of problems
from the state and contacted as many of the farmers as we could."
In other words the Pennsylvania DOA's sketchy 1979 survey, which had
been labeled "worthless" by {The} (Baltimore) {News-American}, had
served as the basis for the "definitive" federal study of animal
problems around the nation's biggest reactor accident. And in fact
the NRC had contacted even fewer farmers--a year later--than had the
state. "We did not go to all those people," LaRoche told us. "But we
did go to quite a few."
Nor was there any improvement in actual testing of livestock. "We
did not see any animals," LaRoche explained. "We did not do any
autopsies. This [study] was done over a year after the accident. By
the time we did our survey, all those animals had died or had been
disposed of."[20]
In fact the final NRC/EPA report listed fewer than thirty-five cases
involving animal problems near TMI. In more than half of them the
investigators conceded that there were insufficient data to draw any
conclusions about radiation poisoning one way or the other. Under the
category of farm animal reproductive problems, for example, the report
listed fourteen different cases. In ten of them the researchers
acknowledged having either no data, insufficient data, or "cause
unknown."[21]
As for the reports of Dr. Robert Weber that stillbirths and
malformations among area pigs were epidemic, there was no survey or
interview. The authors simply noted that "episodes of farm animals
requiring caesarean delivery of young were reported after the
accident." A repeat of "this specific problem was not evident in
1980; however, an increase of stillbirths in pigs was reported during
the spring of 1980." There was no systematic poll of local
veterinarians, no tabulated survey of area pig farmers.
"Similar problems in goats and sheep were also reported," said the
authors. "But increases in the number of stillbirths in these animals
were not observed. Again, these problems do not appear to be
recurring events. Sterility and lower reproductive rates, especially
in ducks and goats, have been reported but not confirmed."[22]
The study went on to note that an "oral report by a private citizen"
had indicated a poodle was born in an unspecified location "without
one eye socket." In fact the dog--as John Nikoloff of the state DOA
later confirmed--was born with two eye sockets but no eyeballs at Fran
Cain's kennel near the plant. Its case had been widely reported in
the media, but the NRC never visited the kennel. Instead it concluded
that the problem "was probably a developmental malformation, cause
unknown."[23] In a cross section of nine other cases the findings
were similarly inconclusive. In half of the remaining cases shipping
fever, foot rot, nutritional deficiencies, virus, and several other
diseases were mentioned. "Insufficient data" and "no diagnosis"
accounted for the majority.
As for the widely reported disappearance of wildlife, the report
blamed pesticides and the weather. There was no mention of
independent studies showing high radiation levels in local rabbits,
meadow voles, and milk.
To support one of the most crucial official health contentions in
American history, the NRC and EPA had cited less than two dozen year-
old autopsies and performed none on its own; presented no systematic
survey of area hunters, farmers, gardeners, veterinarians, doctors,
breeders, or fishermen; and made no substantial contributions to the
very brief two-day survey done a year before by the state. "I was
disappointed in the NRC's report," said Pennsylvania's John Nikoloff.
"I felt with their resources they could have done a better job."[24]
Still the commission was prepared to promise that "concerned
citizens may be assured that in keeping with its mission to safeguard
the public health and safety, the staff of the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission will continue to investigate reports of unusual problems
experienced with plants and animals, and any pertinent findings will
be made available."[25]
Had the NRC investigated more thoroughly, it might have found some
important evidence. In early 1981, two years after the accident, Dr.
Robert Weber, the Mechanicsburg vet, told us the plague of birthing
problems among pigs, goats, and sheep had come to an end. "Since the
plant's been shut," he said, "there are no down cows or animals with
hypertension or mental conditions over there. There's been a decline
in everything that we had a lot of last year. I hardly get a call to
go over there any more."[26]
"Since they shut the place down," added Charles Conley, "why, things
have been much better. Had a good crop, and some of the birds are
back."[27] Conley was one of many local farmers to claim a noticeable
improvement in the health of his animals in the wake of the TMI
shutdown. He also told us the mysterious white powder that had been
plaguing his rainwater had not reappeared since the plant shutdown.
In fact the NRC/EPA investigators spent a good deal of time tracing
tales of the powder. But with TMI shut, none was to be found. "We
asked all over for farmers to bring us in a sample of that white
powder," said Germain LaRoche. "The only thing we got was some stuff
from a woman that turned out to be mildew."[28]
On a broader scale a survey of "fresh water cooling towers
throughout the country has not shown any evidence of white powder,"
said the report. But somehow they missed a white residue reported by
residents as close as Shippingport, reports that were nationally
syndicated by Jack Anderson in 1977. Statements of strange residues
coming from the sky near Vermont Yankee also went uninvestigated.
Nor, apparently, did the government give much credence to a broad
cross section of experienced, deeply rooted, conservative Pennsylvania
farmers who were--like sheepherders downwind from the Nevada Test
Site, like Herschel Bennett in Arkansas, like Nancy Weber in upstate
New York, like Lloyd Mixon at Rocky Flats, like Mildred Zywna at
Vermont Yankee, like Emil Zimmerman at West Valley, like Clarence
Ransome near Canon City--simply unable to find any other possible
explanation for the unprecedented plague of diseases among their
animals except nearby sources of human-made atomic radiation.
------
14. {The Progressive}, June 1980; {Village Voice}, March 1980; Pacific
News Service, March 25, 1980; {Valley Advocate}, March 26, 1980;
Pawlick, "Silent Toll"; {New York Times}, March 27, 1980. There were
also numerous radio reports dealing with the animal problems around
TMI.
15. For information on rising capital costs of atomic reactors versus
coal-fired plants, see Komonoff, {Power Plant Cost Escalation}. For a
table of falling reactor orders, see the Atomic Industrial Forum, {The
Nuclear Industry in 1980: A Rocky Road to Recovery} (Washington, D.C.:
Atomic Industrial Forum), January 19, 1981. The release, full of
optimism for "some good years," was characterized as "whistling past
the graveyard" by Anthony Parisi, in "Hard Times for Nuclear Power,"
{New York Times Magazine}, April 12, 1981. According to the AIF, in
1980 there were sixteen reactors canceled in the U.S. against no new
orders. There were sixty-nine postponements.
The comparison of nuclear energy output to firewood comes from Tim
Glidden, project manager of the Resource Policy Center, Dartmouth
College. In a June 1981 interview Glidden said he calculated the 1980
usable energy output of U.S. nuclear power plants at 0.868 quads; that
of wood was 1.351 quads. The nuclear figure did not account for energy
consumed in the enrichment of uranium for reactor use, which could
lower it by 25 percent, or for energy used in attempting to deal with
nuclear waste.
16. Hammel, "Second Accident."
17. Ibid.
18. G. E. Gears, et al., {Investigations of Report Plant and Animal Health
Effects in the Three Mile Island Area} NRC and EPA, NUREG-0738 and EPA
600/4-80-049 (Washington,D.C.: NRC and EPA, October l980), p.31
(hereafter cited as {NRC/EPA Animal Study}).
19. {New York Times}, "Goat Stories from Three Mile Island," November 23,
1980. The editorial read in full:
"Remember those frightening stories about deformed animals and dead
vegetation around the nuclear plant at Three Mile Island? Not just the
anti-nuclear crowd spread the tales of unusual animal deaths,
stillbirths, broken bones, missing eyes--even a glowing fish. Reports
came from farmers, housewives and a veterinarian who had long practiced
in the area. Here was the evidence, some said, that the radiation from
nuclear power plants, including even normal releases, can cause
devastating biological injury.
"Well, the results of a thorough investigation of plant and animal
defects are now in. The inquiry was run by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission with the help of two agencies that are highly sensitive to
biological harm--the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, looking
out for farmers and livestock, and the Federal Environmental Protection
Agency, which safeguards the public.
"The findings are clear. None of the plant or animal defects can be
attributed either to the accident or to normal nuclear operations at
Three Mile Island. Many of the animal defects, in fact, were traced to
the carelessness of the protesting farmers.
"Calves that could not stand, or walk without staggering, turned out
to be suffering nutritional deficiences; when fed mineral and vitamin
supplements, their problems disappeared. Goats that failed to produce
offspring were found to be victims of genetic infertility; when a new
buck was tried, reproduction soared. Horses that failed to breed were
found to have a chronic infection. A group of 500 parakeets, canaries
and other birds succumbed to toxic fumes or an overheated aviary; they
showed no signs of radiation injury. A decline in the sightings of
toads was hardly peculiar to Three Mile Island; it had been recorded
all over the East, and for two decades, and may be attributable to
pesticides. Suspicious damage to plants and trees was traced to
disease and insects, not radiation. A few cases of animal anemia were
nowhere near the radioactive plume.
"So the horror stories evaporate. That is not unusual. People
often blame a highly dramatic and frightening event for unrelated
difficulties. The wise citizen withholds judgment until hysteria
subsides and dispassionate investigators assemble the facts. Three
Mile Island taught a lot about the defects of nuclear plants, but it
caused no defects in Pennsylvania's woods and barnyards."
20. Germain LaRoche, interview, February 1981.
21. {NRC/EPA Animal Study}, pp. 19-26.
22. Ibid., pp. 19-20.
23. Ibid., p. 8; and Nikoloff interview.
24. Nikoloff, interview, March 1981.
25. {NRC/EPA Animal Study}, p. 1.
26. Weber, interview, February 1981.
27. Conley, interview, October 1980.
28. LaRoche interview.
------
* * * * * * *
14
People Died at Three Mile Island
Gordon MacLeod sat across from the governor of Pennsylvania. It was
October 9, 1979. MacLeod had been state secretary of health since
twelve days prior to the accident at Three Mile Island.
A tall, trim Bostonian, MacLeod was a lifelong Republican who had
served in Richard Nixon's Department of Health, Education, and
Welfare. As both a medical doctor and an engineer he had moved from a
research fellowship at Harvard Medical School to a chairmanship at the
University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health.
In 1979 Governor Richard Thornburgh, a neighbor of MacLeod's, had
urged him to take charge of the state's Department of Health, which
was in disarray. MacLeod had resisted, but finally agreed, with the
understanding he would serve just two years, then return to academia.
Now, eight months later, as controversy still raged over how much
radiation had been released at Three Mile Island, the governor's
office called the secretary of health for a conference. The meeting
began with some small talk, MacLeod told us a year later. And then
Thornburgh got to the point. "`Gordon,' the governor said, `I'm going
to have to ask for your resignation.'"
"I just sat there," MacLeod told us, "stunned. After going to all
that trouble to get me to come on board, he was now telling me to
leave after just eight months because things were `just not working
out.'"[1]
Thornburgh's public explanation for MacLeod's firing was a
"difference in institutional style." But the state media had other
ideas. As the UPI reported it, MacLeod had been "state government's
harshest critic of the way the Thornburgh administration responded to
the Three Mile Island accident. And that may have been why he was
fired."[2]
Indeed, MacLeod's problems with Thornburgh had begun on March 29,
the day after news of radioactive releases from TMI began to spread.
MacLeod had, in his words, "recommended and, on the next day, urged
the governor in the strongest possible terms to call for the departure
of pregnant women and young children from an area within five miles of
the Three Mile Island plant." MacLeod told us later that if he had a
chance to do it over, he would also have urged the departure of
children in puberty, who are also extraordinarily radiation-sensitive.
But the state's nuclear engineers and radiation health physicists
disagreed with MacLeod, and they told the governor there was no need
for an evacuation. Initially Thornburgh advised area residents to
stay indoors, but said nothing about evacuating.[3]
Meanwhile Dr. Ernest Sternglass had gone to Harrisburg the day after
the accident. After testing on his own and finding high radiation
levels, he urged that the state evacuate pregnant women and small
children. He was worried in particular that I-131 doses could prove
devastating to the small children and infants {in utero} who were
particularly vulnerable to miscarriages, stillbirths, malformations,
childhood leukemias, and other radiation-linked problems. Thornburgh
publicly charged Sternglass with being an alarmist and stood firm in
his refusal to call for an evacuation.
That night the state's Department of Environmental Resources
announced that because the holding tanks at TMI were overloaded with
radioactive liquids, Met Ed had been flushing them for hours into the
Susquehanna River. No one had bothered to notify communities
downstream that were continuing to draw their drinking water from the
river.[4]
Finally Thornburgh asked NRC chairman Joseph Hendrie, a nuclear
engineer, what he would do if he had a pregnant wife in the area.
Hendrie replied that he would get her out "because we don't know what
is going to happen."[5]
Thornburgh then decided to do what MacLeod had quietly urged and
what he had attacked Ernest Sternglass for publicly suggesting. At
noon on March 30--two days after the start of the accident--he
announced that he was "advising those who may be particularly
susceptible to the effects of radiation, that is, pregnant Women and
pre-school-age children, to leave the area within a 5-mile radius of
the Three Mile Island facility until further notice."[6]
------
1. Gordon MacLeod, interview, October 1980; see also, Anna Mayo, "The
Nuclear State in Ascendancy," {Village Voice}, October 22-28, 1980.
2. {York Daily Record}, November 5, 1979, p. 4-A.
3. MacLeod interview, and Gordon MacLeod, "Three Mile Island and the
Politics of Public Health," prepared for presentation for the New York
City and Old Westbury chapters of Physicians for Social Responsibility,
Columbia University, New York, November 22, 1980 (hereafter cited as
"Politics"); see also, Gordon MacLeod, "Some Public Health Lessons
from Three Mile Island: A Case Study in Chaos," {Ambio} 10, No. 1
(1981).
4. {Washington Post, Crisis}.
5. {Kemeny Report}, p. 118.
6. {Washington Post, Crisis}.
------
Public Health in Crisis
Meanwhile Gordon MacLeod was desperately trying to choreograph an
official health response. Despite the recommendations of the Shapp
Commission at Shippingport six years earlier MacLeod found the state
woefully unprepared for a nuclear incident. "There was not even a
book on radiation medicine in the department," he said. "Nor was
there a single physician specially trained in radiation medicine
anywhere in the Pennsylvania state government."
Apparently the NRC was equally unprepared. As the accident
progressed, MacLeod asked the commission to send in a doctor trained
in the field of radiation health. "I was told," MacLeod said, "that
the NRC had no physicians on its staff, much less a physician trained
in the field of radiation medicine."[7]
The commonwealth also tried to get from the federal government a
supply of potassium iodide, a liquid that may be taken to block the
ingestion of radioactive iodine from the atmosphere, and thus prevent
harm to the thyroid.[8] Finally, five days after the accident--far
too late for it to do much good--eleven thousand "little brown vials"
arrived. According to MacLeod, six thousand of them were unlabeled.
Many of the droppers yielded only half the correct dose. Other
droppers did not fit the vials at all. And many of the vials
contained "hairlike filamentous material and other particulate
matter."[9]
Despite his belief that the official health response to the accident
had been grossly inadequate, MacLeod remained a supporter of atomic
energy. "I personally believe," he told a conference at Columbia
University eighteen months after the accident, "that nuclear power can
be made relatively safe if we don't ignore the public health lessons
of the past."[10]
But MacLeod worried that those "health lessons" were being ignored.
Several months after the accident he clashed with Thomas Gerusky,
chief of radiation monitoring at the state's Department of
Environmental Resources, who had opposed the early evacuation of
pregnant women and small children from the area. MacLeod found
Gerusky's testimony to the Kemeny Commission inquiry into the accident
to be misleading. In the fall he wrote a letter to Commission
chairman John Kemeny outlining his objections to what Gerusky had
said.[11]
That, apparently, was the last straw for the Thornburgh
administration. Word soon spread that MacLeod's behavior during the
accident had been "erratic." By mid-October he had been removed from
his position.[12] The state media interpreted MacLeod's dismissal as
a concession to the nuclear industry. Some atomic backers had deeply
resented the call for the TMI evacuation, saying it had been
unnecessary, unwarranted, and had served only to frighten the
population.
But the firing of Gordon MacLeod hardly ended the controversy over
the health impact of the accident and how it had been handled. In
November, Ernest Sternglass charged that figures from the nearby
Harrisburg and Holy Spirit hospitals indicated that infant deaths
there had doubled from six during February through April of 1979 to
twelve in May through July. Only one infant had died at the
Harrisburg Hospital in May through July of 1978; seven had died there
in those same three months following the accident. The statistics
seemed tragically reminiscent of the era of nuclear bomb testing. The
NRC, the state, and the utility had all claimed--as had the AEC after
so many atomic explosions--that radiation releases had been too small
to have more than a very marginal health impact, if any at all.
Sternglass asserted the authorities had failed to account for the
extreme sensitivities of fetuses {in utero} in claiming a very
marginal health impact from the accident's releases.[13]
He also pointed out a crucial shortcoming in the method of
calculating estimated doses from a nuclear accident. An average
population dose had been set by estimating how much radiation had been
released and making calculations around the two million people in the
fifty-mile radius around TMI. But, he said, the winds during the most
crucial hours of the accident--when most of the radiation was
released--generally headed to the west, northwest, and north. Thus
the real doses were impacting not the vast surrounding population, but
the people specifically in the path of the plume. And as Chairman
Joseph Hendrie had confirmed on March 30, in the midst of the
accident, the doses to individual areas where the plume touched the
ground were "husky" and in the range of 120 millirems per hour and
more, quantities easily large enough to cause severe damage to fetuses
in the womb.[14]
Sternglass now charged that the doses had in fact impacted people in
the path of the plume, and with visible effect. Syracuse, Rochester,
and Albany had all received windblown doses from the plant, he said,
and had suffered rising infant deaths. A preliminary study by the
Canadian journal {Harrowsmith} indicated a possibly similar pattern
emerging among infants born at eastern Ontario and western Quebec
hospitals, due to radiation from nearby Nine Mile Point.[15]
In December of 1979, Sternglass carried his conclusions much
further. In a paper delivered to the Fifth World Congress of
Engineers and Architects at Tel Aviv, he said that data from the U.S.
Bureau of Vital Statistics showed that there were "242 [infant] deaths
above the normally expected number in Pennsylvania and a total of 430
in the entire northeastern area of the United States," a rise of clear
statistical significance. The linkage with TMI was clear because
"large amounts of radioactive Iodine-131 were released from the plant"
and the peak of infant mortality came within a matter of months
thereafter. The greatest rises took place near the plant, with
effects decreasing as a function of distance away from Harrisburg.
He backed up his case by analyzing the amount of radiation to which
pregnant women downwind might have been subjected. Accepting minimum
official estimates, Sternglass calculated that the doses of
radioactive I-131 alone could have been on the order of one hundred
millirems to individual pregnant women in the path of the plume. Such
doses, he said, were clearly capable of causing rises in infant
mortality.[16]
Using federal statistics, Sternglass then demonstrated that
Pennsylvania's infant death rate in July was the highest of any state
east of the Mississippi that month (except for Washington, D.C.),
although Pennsylvania usually has one of the lowest rates in the
nation. He went on to say that a similar rise was evident in infant-
mortality rates in northern New England--where wind had carried
fallout from the plant--as opposed to southern New England, where it
had not.[17]
The hypothesis was confirmed by the fact that infant-death rates
began to fall again after the accident. This, he said, was
predictable because embryos {in utero} who were too small to have
developed a thyroid, or who were conceived after the accident, would
not have been affected by their mothers' ingestion of radioactive
iodine.
But I-131 was not the only radioactive element released from TMI--
nor were infants the only humans likely to be harmed. Strontium 90,
cesium 137, noble gases, and other disease-causing isotopes may also
have escaped. Overall, said Sternglass, increases in cancers,
leukemia, and a wide range of other diseases were "likely to occur."
The Three Mile Island accident, he predicted, "will turn out to have
produced the largest death toll ever resulting from an industrial
accident, with total deaths from all causes likely to reach many
thousands over the next 10 to 20 years."[18]
------
7. MacLeod,"Politics."
8. A discussion of the efficacy of potassium iodide in preventing harm
during a nuclear accident appears in Jan Beyea, {Some Long-Term
Consequences of Hypothetical Major Releases of Radioactivity to the
Atmosphere from Three Mile Island} (Princeton, N.J.: Center for Energy
and Environmental Studies, 1979).
9. MacLeod interview.
10. MacLeod, "Politics."
11. MacLeod interview.
12. Pawlick, "Silent Toll. "
13. Ernest Sternglass, "Infant Mortality Changes Following the Three Mile
Island Accident," presented at the 5th World Congress of Engineers and
Architects, Tel Aviv, Israel, 1980 (hereafter cited as "Infant
Mortality Changes"); and Pawlick, "Silent Toll."
14. {Pittsburgh Post-Gazette}, April 16, 1979, p. 1.
15. Pawlick, "Silent Toll," and Sternglass, "Infant Mortality Changes."
16. Ibid.; and Sternglass interview.
17. Sternglass, "Infant Mortality Changes"; see also, Sternglass, "TMI
Update," {Nation}, April 25, 1981.
18. Sternglass, "Infant Mortality Changes."
------
[part 15 of 18]
Pennsylvania Denies Infant Deaths
The charge that TMI had actually killed area infants provoked a
storm of outrage from the government of Pennsylvania. The state
responded--as it had at Shippingport six years earlier--that the
official statistics Ernest Sternglass had used were, after all,
inaccurate. Dr. George Tokuhata, director of the state's Department
of Epidemiological Research, said a "printing error" on the part of
the U.S. Bureau of Vital Statistics had skewed the state's infant-
mortality figures. There were thus eighty-eight fewer infant deaths
in Pennsylvania in the summer of 1979 than originally recorded.[19]
Sternglass, however, held his ground. Discrepancies between state
and federal data are not uncommon. But this particular case seemed
"suspicious." The discrepancy in infant deaths between the two
sources for the period of April 1 through June 30, 1979, had been two;
from October 1 through December 31 it had also been two. For eighty-
eight to surface between July 1 and September 30, precisely in the
controversial summer months after the TMI accident, seemed
unlikely.[20]
But even after subtracting those eighty-eight infant deaths,
Sternglass said, Pennsylvania's infant-mortality rate still exceeded
the average U.S. rate--contrary to normal patterns--"and also exceeded
it for every month following the accident up to December." He thus
maintained that his overall conclusions about infant deaths in the
Northeast remained unchanged.[21]
Tokuhata nonetheless told {The New York Times}, which accepted his
remarks uncritically, that Sternglass's analysis had been based on
"the wrong number." Tokuhata further charged that Sternglass's
reports were "full of problems" and had been built around
"methodologies inconsistent with standard epidemiological procedures."
He had, said Tokuhata, "selected areas for analysis that fit his
hypothesis ignoring those close to the reactor where the infant
mortality rate was very low."[22]
Sternglass replied--though not in {The New York Times}--that he had
not initially studied those close-in areas in his Tel Aviv report
"because Tokuhata himself had refused to make [those figures]
available to me at the time I was doing my study."[23]
In an interview with us Tokuhata denied having ever refused to give
Sternglass the data. "He must have asked some other department,"
Tokuhata said. "We never refused."[24]
But in fact the infant-mortality statistics around TMI only became
public in the winter of 1980, when Dr. MacLeod--who had since returned
to the University of Pittsburgh--began receiving calls from his former
colleagues. Anonymous members of the department told MacLeod that the
state was suppressing statistics that indicated a rise in infant-
mortality rates near TMI. Alarmed by what MacLeod termed a
"restrictive policy" on health data, he released the numbers in a
pulpit address at Pittsburgh's First Unitarian Church. That, in turn,
forced the Department of Health to make the figures officially
public.[25]
And the numbers apparently confirmed the public's worst fears. In
the six-month period following the accident, in a ten-mile radius
around TMI, thirty-one infants had died. In 1978 the number was only
fourteen; in 1977 it had been twenty.
Tokuhata told the {Times} the apparently sharp rise in infant deaths
in 1979 was not significant because that was an absolute number, not a
rate of deaths against live births. {Times} reporter Jane Brody
paraphrased him thusly: "When the 31 infant deaths were considered in
relation to the number of live births, no statistically meaningful
difference was found."[26]
But in fact, said Sternglass, these "preliminary" figures showed an
infant-death {rate} within that ten-mile radius of 7.2 per 1000 live
births in 1978; in 1979, after the accident, the number had risen to
15.7 per 1000--a more than doubling.
The numbers for infant-death rates within a five-mile radius of
TMI--though small--were even more damning. In 1978 the rate had been
2.3 infant deaths per 1000 live births; in 1979, after the accident,
it was 16.2--a jump by a factor of seven.[27]
But the state had an explanation. At a press conference in April of
1980 Dr. H. Arnold Muller, who had taken MacLeod's place as secretary
of health, announced that the TMI-area infant-death rates showed "no
statistically significant difference in the mortality rate than for
the state as a whole."[28] To support its case the state introduced a
racial factor. Black people, it said, are known to suffer a higher
rate of infant mortality than whites. Thus the presence of large
numbers of blacks in Harrisburg--some of whom had been counted into
the figures for the ten-mile radius around TMI--had made the local
infant-mortality rates seem unduly large. As Tokuhata was paraphrased
by Jane Brody in the {Times}: ". . . when analyzed without taking
into account Harrisburg, where the large black population ordinarily
has a much higher infant mortality rate than the rest of the region,
the rate for the population living within 10 miles of the plant was
the same as that {for the state as a whole}" (our emphasis).[29]
The analysis was deceptive.
The charge that TMI had killed nearby infants had nothing to do with
a comparison with the state average. It had been based on comparing
death rates {in the same area} from the spring and summer of 1977 and
1978--before the accident--against those of the spring and summer of
1979--after the accident.
To subtract the figures for black people from the 1979 statistics
without doing the same for 1978 and 1977 would have made sense only if
they had all moved into Harrisburg the day of the accident.
And in fact, prior to the accident, the infant-mortality rate in the
TMI area had been generally {lower} than the state average. If it now
equaled the state average, that would really mean a significant {rise}
in the normal local infant-mortality rate.
But the state's own statistics showed the local rates were actually
{above} the state average anyway. From April 1 to September 30, 1979,
the state infant-mortality rate was put at 13.3 per 1000. For that
period in the ten-mile radius around TMI it was 15.7; for the five-
mile radius (which excluded Harrisburg's blacks) it was 16.2. Thus in
the same press release in which the state had claimed preliminary
proof that the TMI accident had harmed no babies, its own figures
indicated precisely the opposite.[30]
Meanwhile, another controversy had erupted over an unexpected
outbreak of thyroid-deficiency problems among infants born to the
southeast of the plant. Again Gordon MacLeod was responsible for
making the information public. Having been informed by colleagues
still within the Department of Health that the numbers had surfaced,
MacLeod privately asked the state--four times--to release the data.
The state refused all four times. So MacLeod alerted a UPI reporter
that "there's a story over there," and it was soon in the
newspapers.[31]
The problem focused around thirteen cases of infant hypothyroidism
in an area where normally three such cases would be expected. MacLeod
was particularly sensitive to the state's withholding data on
hypothyroidism because it is a disorder that can be easily treated at
birth with the administration of iodine supplements. Untreated, it
can cause brain damage and a wide variety of other serious defects.
"The most important thing was that there be some opportunity to
prevent the disease," MacLeod told us. Warning the public "might help
pick up any case that might otherwise slip through the cracks."[32]
But the question raised a sensitive issue. Thyroid problems were
well known to have surfaced among Marshall Islanders downwind from
atomic tests. To imply an outbreak downwind of TMI was potentially to
indict the reactor.
Industry response was thus immediate and sharp. "There cannot be
any connection" between TMI and the disease, said Dr. Victor Bond of
the Brookhaven National Laboratory. "I can say that unequivocally.
For thyroid effects, the doses would have to have been thousands of
times higher than they were." "A link just cannot be there," added
William Dornsife, a nuclear engineer with the state Bureau of
Radiation Safety.[33]
Tokuhata later told us that a case-by-case investigation in
Lancaster County, where seven of the hypothyroid cases had surfaced,
showed "no evidence" to link TMI to the disease. One case, he said,
had surfaced "before the accident." Another was "inherited" and a
third baby was "born three months after the accident and could not
have been affected." Two others "had the thyroid in the wrong
locations, which is a developmental disorder and highly unlikely to
have anything to do with TMI." The final two cases were
"unexplained." But having eliminated five of the seven victims,
Tokuhata said the remaining two fitted the "normal pattern" of two
hypothyroids per fifty-five hundred live births.[34]
By culling the cases Tokuhata brought the hypothyroid statistics
down to what the state termed a "normal" rate. But Gordon MacLeod
charged that even while accepting Tokuhata's subtractions, the
extraordinary concentration of cases in a short period of time after
the accident still reflected a five- to tenfold increase in the
expected number.[35]
{The New York Times}, however, accepted Tokuhata's analysis without
question. In Jane Brody's April 15, 1980, report--entitled "Three
Mile Island: No Health Impact Found"--the paper definitively
exonerated the crippled reactor. In the instance of the hypothyroids
a "potentially biased selection of cases led to the conclusion that
radiation had damaged fetal thyroid glands."
The article dismissed the infant mortalities, saying incomplete
figures and incorrect survey methods were the real culprits. Relying
on statements from Tokuhata, other Pennsylvania officials, and the
Atlanta-based Center for Disease Control--and without interviewing
Gordon MacLeod--Brody concluded that "health officials say that thus
far data do not support" claims of any extraordinary health problems
among infants downwind.[36]
Unfortunately, in taking utility, state, and federal officials' word
at face value, Brody had failed to notice a middle ground developing.
Dr. Thomas Foley of the Pittsburgh Children's Hospital told {The
Washington Post} that no cause-and-effect relationship had been
definitely proven linking TMI to the hypothyroids. But "the fact that
it did follow the accident raises an issue," he said. The timing was
"peculiar and curious."[37]
The {Times} also overlooked the possibility that radiation from TMI
might have been only partially at fault, and that emissions from
normal operations at the nearby Peach Bottom reactor might also have
contributed to the problem. A survey of cases in nearby Maryland
might have helped clear up the issue, but none was done.[38]
Three days after Jane Brody's story appeared, the staff editorial
"Nuclear Fabulists" appeared in the {Times}. It charged that "those
scare stories about radiation damage from the accident at Three Mile
Island look increasingly far fetched." Just as "reports of bizarre
deformities among farm animals and wildlife" had been squelched by the
Department of Agriculture, so concerns about infant mortality and
hypothyroidism had been "effectively laid to rest by state and Federal
health investigators." Findings that "little radiation escaped,
posing virtually no threat to public health" had been "supported by
all major investigations of the accident," said the {Times} editorial
board.
In fact the real problem was "experts" who had "inflamed public
fears by dealing recklessly with statistics." Among them was Dr.
MacLeod, who "irresponsibly publicized some of the raw data suggesting
the existence of health problems," and Dr. Sternglass, who was
"accused by neutral [!] health authorities of mishandling data to
demonstrate health damage. . . . Even in nuclear fables," concluded
America's journal of record, "there are people who cry wolf."[39]
------
19. George Tokuhata, interview, February 1981.
20. Pawlick, "Silent Toll"; and MacLeod, "Politics."
21. Pawlick, "Silent Toll."
22. Brody, "3 Mile Island."
23. Pawlick, "Silent Toll."
24. Tokuhata interview. In this February 1981 interview Tokuhata denied
having refused to send Sternglass the data in question. Later in the
interview, however, we asked him for infant-mortality data for 1975 and
1976. He said he could not send it to us. We also asked him about
Gordon MacLeod's remark to us (in our October 1980 interview) that
Tokuhata had called MacLeod at 7:00.A.M. one morning in the winter of
1979-80 to discuss the hypothyroid cases that had surfaced in
southeastern Pennsylvania. Tokuhata denied having made the call.
25. MacLeod interview.
26. Brody, "3 Mile Island."
27. Sternglass, "Infant Mortality Changes"; and Pawlick, "Silent Toll."
See also, Sternglass, {Secret Fallout}, pp. 241-275.
28. Pennsylvania Department of Health, {Health Department Releases
Preliminary Study on Infant Deaths in TMI Area} (Harrisburg:
Department of Health, April 2, 1980) (hereafter cited as {State
Preliminary Study}).
29. Brody, "3 Mile Island."
30. {State Preliminary Study}. This press statement also included a long
discussion of infant-death rates in the January 1-September 30, 1979,
period and the October 1, 1978-March 31, 1979, period, neither of which
was particularly relevant to the question of what the accident did or
did not do to local infant-death rates. Both sets of figures included
seasonal changes and neither offered the year-to-year comparisons that
were the heart of the matter. See Pawlick, "Silent Toll," for a
lengthy discussion of which periods were relevant and which were not.
31. MacLeod interview.
32. Ibid., and MacLeod, "Politics."
33. {Philadelphia Inquirer}, February 22, 1980.
34. Tokuhata, interview, April 1980.
35. Gordon MacLeod, interview, June 1981. MacLeod explained to us that the
state had averaged the two "accepted" hypothyroid cases over a full
year's period, when in fact they had both occurred in a matter of
months after the accident. One might also question Tokuhata's methods
of culling the cases. Overall hypothyroid incidence rates are
calculated on a total number of reported cases. For the state to cull
the count in this single instance was to give it special treatment not
given the method of calculating the "normal" rate.
36. Brody, "3 Mile Island." Among other things Brody's article incorrectly
stated there had been twenty infant deaths in the ten-mile area around
TMI in 1978; in fact state statistics showed fourteen for that year,
and twenty for 1977.
37. Victor Cohn, "A-Plant Involved in Probe of Thyroid Ills," {Washington
Post}, February 21, 1980.
38. The suggestion that Maryland infant-mortality rates be investigated
came from Dr. Alice Stewart.
39. {New York Times}, "Nuclear Fabulists."
------
Infants Died at TMI
As debate over hypothyroids and infant deaths intensified, so did
the anger and fears of the people around Three Mile Island. In March
of 1980, at the first anniversary of the accident, some eleven
thousand people gathered at the state house in Harrisburg to demand a
permanent shutdown at TMI. The controversy largely focused on Met
Ed's "other" reactor, Three Mile Island Unit One.
At the time of the 1979 accident TMI-1 had been just about to come
back on line after a refueling shutdown. Ironically TMI-1 had one of
the best operating records of any reactor in the U.S. The accident at
TMI-2 had kept it shut. Now Metropolitan Edison, operating at the
brink of bankruptcy, facing a bill of at least one billion dollars for
cleaning up TMI-2, wanted desperately to get TMI-1 reopened and back
in its rate base.
Increasingly fierce local opposition was in the way. In March of
1981 local citizens burned fifty thousand dollars in Met Ed electric
bills on the state-house steps. The next day, on the accident's
second anniversary, fifteen thousand people gathered to demand a
permanent shutdown. The latter rally marked a major turning point in
public attitudes toward nuclear power because it had been sponsored by
eleven international trade unions--representing some seven million
workers. For years organized labor had been portrayed as a staunch,
unified supporter of atomic energy. But now increasing concern over
health, safety, and economic issues had helped change that.
At the same time, however, the newly inaugurated Reagan
administration was pushing ahead to restart atomic licensing. Through
the last months of the Carter administration industry supporters had
been lobbying hard to call the post-TMI moratorium to an end. The
industry had learned much about safety, they said and it was time to
build more plants. Led by NRC chairman Joseph Hendrie a strong drive
to shorten the licensing process, and limit public participation in
it, gained momentum.
But critics charged that this was precisely the time the reactors
were proving more dangerous than ever. One particularly harsh fight
was developing over the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Station, a double-
reactor project on the coast of California that sat just three miles
from a major earthquake fault. The plant had been tied up in legal
battles since it was completed in 1976. Hundreds of arrests had taken
place at the site, and in 1981 a national-scale confrontation erupted
there.
And in the midst of increasing polarization evidence continued to
surface that nuclear power was far more dangerous than anyone had
believed, and that the "wolf" Gordon MacLeod and Ernest Sternglass
were pointing to was in fact very real.
As early as October of 1979--six months after the TMI accident, and
the same month in which Gordon MacLeod was fired--the Arkansas
Department of Health issued a study indicating a sharp rise in
stillbirths in Pope County, where Arkansas Power and Light's Nuclear
One is located. The infant-mortality rate had dropped slightly. But
the stillbirth rate had soared so significantly that the combined
total had climbed from 20.3 per 1000 live births in 1974, when Nuclear
One opened, to 25.4 in 1975, 27.6 in 1976, and 26.8 in 1977. The
combined rate in control counties farther from the site had, by
contrast, dropped sharply.
Arkansas Power and Light quickly denied any likelihood that Nuclear
One "would have any effect on the health of newborns. We have worked
closely with the hospital there," said AP&L vice-president, Charles
Kelly, "and every indication we've had in monitoring the health
effects is that there is none." The study, added Director Robert
Young of the Arkansas Health Department, was "inconclusive" and
offered no evidence that Nuclear One was to blame for the escalating
stillbirth rate.
But Drs. George Carlo and Carol Hogue, the epidemiologists at the
University of Arkansas Medical Sciences campus who prepared the study,
warned that "a pattern of risk" seemed to be developing. "The
situation should be monitored closely," they said, because "we may be
detecting a weak signal."[40]
The signal from TMI seemed considerably stronger. In February of
1981 Pennsylvania released its 1979 vital statistics--seven months
later than normally expected. Missing from the data for the first
time were general disease figures from the town of Aliquippa, near
Shippingport. Also omitted were county-by-county tallies of
congenital malformations, and information on how many infants had been
born under a weight of fifteen hundred grams. "This key information,"
charged Ernest Sternglass, "is needed to study the possible effects of
radioactive iodine from the release of TMI or the other large reactors
in the state of Pennsylvania.
"The pattern is clear," he said in an angry article in {The Nation}.
"Two years after the TMI accident, the nuclear industry and the state
of Pennsylvania continue to mislead the public about its adverse
effects on human health."[41]
Just prior to the 1981 union-sponsored rally at the state capital,
the Department of Health released what it termed a "final" report on
infant deaths near the plant. On March 20, Dr. George Tokuhata told
the media that the rate of infants dying in their first year of life
had definitely not gone up after the accident. In fact, he said, in a
ten-mile radius around TMI, the infant death rate per 1000 live births
was an identical 19.3 in the quarter before the accident and in the
quarter after it. There was "no difference" in the infant-mortality
rate in January through March 1979 as opposed to April through June.
If the accident had killed any area infants, "a significant increase
in infant deaths during the last six months of 1979 would have
occurred." Rather the death rate dropped to 12.7 in July through
September of 1979 and 13.4 in October through December.
Thus, Tokuhata concluded, "there is no evidence to date that
radiation from the nuclear power plant influenced the rise or fall of
statistics."[42] An aide in the Department of Epidemiological
Research told us that Sternglass and others had erred by relying on
"provisional data," and that this latest, "definitive" report would
settle all that.[43]
In general the state and nuclear industry focused their defense of
TMI on attacking Ernest Sternglass. But as in the past Sternglass's
primary role had been to call attention to the issue. Ultimately it
was the state's own numbers that would indicate whether or not TMI had
harmed local infants.
In this case, as he had done in years previous, Dr. Tokuhata had
compared time frames that were essentially irrelevant to each other.
In his public analysis he had emphasized that the 1979 infant-death
rates near TMI in the winter months of January through March--before
the accident--had been the same as in the spring months of April
through June--after the accident.
But infant-death rates usually drop in the spring. The fact that
they were as high in the spring of 1979 as they had been that winter
was extremely significant.
Indeed, a strong case could be made that the December 1978 opening
of TMI-2--not just the accident--could have been related to a
significant increase in infant mortality. The 1979 winter death rates
were far higher than those of 1977 and 1978.
In the winter of 1977 state figures showed that 14.7 infants had
died per 1000 live births in the ten-mile TMI radius. The figure was
equal to the state average for that period of that year. In 1978 the
figure was 14.0--less than the state average for that period of that
year. But in 1979, after the opening of TMI-2, the number had soared
to 19.3--far above the state average for that period of that year, and
far above the rate for that period of the previous two years in the
same area. Something had caused a jump in infant deaths in TMI area
the winter of 1979.
As for the spring of 1979--the three months after the accident--the
contrasts were even more striking. In April through June of 1977,
infants had died in the ten-mile TMI area at the rate of 11.7 per 1000
live births, less than the state average. In 1978 the figure was 9.8,
again less than the state average. But in 1979 the number jumped to
19.3, far above the state average, and nearly doubling the rate of the
previous two years.
____________________________________________________________
Infant Death Rate per 1000 Live Births
Ten-Mile Radius Around Three Mile Island
{Excluding State
Winter Total Harrisburg Harrisburg Average}
1977 14.7 24.8 10.9 14.7
1978 14.0 30.7 7.5 14.3
1979 19.3 33.8 12.6 13.3
{Spring}
1977 11.7 8.1 13.1 14.4
1978 9.8 11.5 9.1 14.0
1979 19.3 29.7 14.7 14.0
{Summer}
1977 9.2 10.9 8.5 12.9
1978 4.9 3.3 5.5 11.8
1979 12.7 9.9 13.9 12.1
{Fall}
1977 14.7 16.9 14.0 13.7
1978 15.1 25.9 11.5 13.6
1979 13.4 31.7 5.9 14.4
____________________________________________________________
Source: Pennsylvania Department of Health, "TMI Area Death
Rates No Higher than State Average, Health Department Report
Says," Harrisburg, March 20, 1981, Table 5.
____________________________________________________________
The figures for the July through September summer months were also
striking. Though fewer infants died in the summer of 1979 than in the
spring of 1979, the rate was clearly higher than it had been in the
summers of 1977 and 1978. The numbers were 12.7 in 1979 as opposed to
9.2 in 1977 and 4.9 in 1978. The figures then leveled off for the
fall months of October through December, with infant-death rates
actually lower in 1979 than they had been for the same period in 1977
and 1978.
The numbers were small in absolute terms, but of clear statistical
significance in the time periods that were most crucial. Overall the
pattern seemed to fit the worst-case scenario for a radioactive
accident. Comparative infant-death rates in a ten-mile radius around
TMI had risen when the second reactor opened there and had skyrocketed
in precisely those critical first three months after the accident.
The figures for Harrisburg itself--where some argued that the worst of
the plant's radioactive emissions had set down--seemed even more
frightening.
____________________________________________________________
Neonatal Death Rate per 1000 Live Births
Ten-Mile Radius Around Three Mile Island
{Excluding State
Winter Total Harrisburg Harrisburg Average}
1977 12.4 20.7 9.3 10.7
1978 8.6 19.2 4.5 9.9
1979 17.2 33.8 9.4 9.3
{Spring}
1977 8.5 -0- 11.6 11.1
1978 7.6 7.6 7.6 11.1
1979 19.3 29.7 14.7 10.5
{Summer}
1977 6.1 7.3 5.7 10.1
1978 1.0 -0- 1.4 9.3
1979 7.8 6.6 8.3 9.3
{Fall}
1977 10.5 12.7 9.8 10.1
1978 10.8 17.2 8.6 10.5
1979 9.3 21.1 4.4 10.1
____________________________________________________________
Source: Pennsylvania Department of Health, "TMI Area Death
Rates No Higher than State Average, Health Department Report
Says," Harrisburg, March 20, 1981, Table 4.
____________________________________________________________
In 1977, in the April through June spring quarter, infants in
Harrisburg died at the rate of 8.1 per 1000 live births, well below
the contemporary state average. In 1978 the figure was 11.5, again
well below the state average. But in 1979 it reached a horrifying
29.7, more than doubling the state average and nearly tripling the
Harrisburg figures for the two previous years. Though the absolute
numbers were small, the changes were of clear statistical
significance.[44] Nor did the figures account for any of the pregnant
women who fled the area during the accident to have their babies
elsewhere, and who might well have been affected by the emissions of
those terrifying first two days.
But the fiercest toll of all seemed to be taken on infants born in
Harrisburg right after the accident, who then died within twenty-eight
days. Infant-mortality rates--on which most of the public debate on
TMI health impacts centered--are based on infants' dying in their
first year of life. Neonatal death rates, a subsection of infant-
mortality statistics, focus on infants who die in their first month of
life. And in those tragic three months after the TMI accident every
Harrisburg baby listed as an infant-mortality statistic had in fact
died in the first twenty-eight days of life. Thus, in April through
June of 1979, state neonatal statistics indicated that infants one
month old or less died in Harrisburg at a rate of 29.7 per 1000 live
births. In 1978 the number had been 7.6. In 1977 it had been zero.
Though the absolute numbers were again small, the changes were of even
greater statistical significance than those in the infant-mortality
rate.[45]
------
40. {Arkansas Gazette}, October 31, 1979, p. 8-A.
41. Sternglass, "TMI Update"; see also, "The First Casualty at T.M.I." and
"The Lethal Path of T.M.I. Fallout," {Nation}, February 28 and March 7,
1981.
42. Pennsylvania Department of Health, {TMI Area Infant Death Rates No
Higher Than Statewide Averages, Health Department Report Says}
(Harrisburg: Department of Health, March 20, 1981) (hereafter cited
as {State Final Report}).
43. Ed Degan, Pennsylvania Department of Health, interview, March 1981.
44. {State Final Report}, Table 5.
45. Ibid., Table 4.
------
The Mental Fallout
In those frightening first days of the accident at Three Mile Island
fifth and sixth graders in nearby Middletown had gotten together to
write their last wills and testaments.[46] The terror was at the gut
and instinctual levels, and it dated all the way back to Hiroshima.
"The first application of nuclear energy was the atomic bombs which
destroyed two major Japanese cities," explained the Kemeny Commission
in 1979. "The fear of radiation has been with us ever since, and is
made worse by the fact that, unlike floods or tornadoes, we can
neither hear nor see nor smell radiation."
Thus, predicted the commissioners, the "major health effect of the
accident" appeared to be "mental distress" felt by "certain groups"
living near the reactor. The problem, they said, was "short
lived."[47] But nine months later state researchers confirmed a 113
percent jump in the number of TMI neighbors using sleeping pills and
an 88 percent rise in those using tranquilizers. The use of alcohol
was up by 14 percent and cigarette smoking had increased by nearly a
third.
As documented by one thousand telephone interviews, a wide range of
"psychosomatic illnesses" had surfaced, including chronic headaches,
diarrhea, loss of appetite, sweating, rashes, and hypertension.[48]
"The symptoms people are suffering are similar to those suffered by
people who work at dangerous jobs," we were told by Dr. Robert Holt, a
New York University psychologist who studied the TMI area. "In those
situations you expect an increase of tension, shortened tempers, mood
swings and more physical symptoms like hyperventilations, ulcers, and
asthma."[49]
In addition to finding stress they also discovered that the
population had become somewhat politicized. Fierce debate raged over
such issues as the venting of krypton gas from TMI-2, the dumping of
more radioactive water into the Susquehanna, the reopening of TMI-1,
who should pay for the cleanup of the site, and whether or not
Metropolitan Edison should be allowed to go bankrupt.
Meanwhile news continued to surface of abnormal radiation levels in
test wells around the plant site, and in area groundwater.[50] Such
reports had an effect. "I am scared to death," Mary Enterline told
{The New York Times}. "I have a two-year-old son and every night when
I pull his shade down at bedtime, and look out the window and see the
cooling towers, I nearly cry."[51]
"I live in fear every day," Donna Umholtz told the state Public
Utilities Commission. "I am ready to evacuate on a second's notice."
"I won't allow my children to be exposed to low-level radiation,"
added Joanne Topolsky, who--like many others--was trying to sell her
home and move out of the area. "We had so many dreams, and they are
shattered now because of TMI."[52]
As the 1980s began, rallies, marches, and a utility-rate revolt
continued to rock what had long been a quiet, staunchly conservative
area. Dislike and distrust of Met Ed, the state, and the NRC
continued to grow. Some public forums had degenerated into bitter
shouting matches. "We will never forgive or forget what you have done
here," twenty-six-year-old Michelle Stewart yelled at an NRC panel in
the spring of 1980. "You have created tension between husbands and
wives. You have turned us into cynical people. . . ."[53]
"My husband is a construction worker who helped build both those
reactors, and now he's damned sorry for it," one local housewife told
us in 1980. "No one in the world can possibly understand what we have
lived through here."
We asked what, of all problems, bothered her the most. She thought
a moment. "I'm tired," she then replied, "of having my children's
health used in an experiment."[54]
Meanwhile some TMI neighbors questioned the fact that so much
attention had been given to the mental fallout from the accident, and
so little to its physical health effects. According to {The New York
Times}, at least fourteen psychological surveys were taken of area
residents in the wake of the accident, based in part on grants of
$375,000 from the National Institute of Mental Health and another
$52,000 from the utility industry. The state of Pennsylvania, which
had mustered a bare hundred work hours to study area animals and which
had established no systematic ongoing survey for possible physical
damage from TMI radiation, did conduct a one-thousand-person telephone
poll on the mental impact of the accident.[55] "It makes you wonder,"
Jane Lee told us, "how they can get so much money to study the
psychological effects of this accident when they can't seem to pull it
together to look at the physical effects on animal and human
health."[56]
------
46. Mayor Robert Reid of Middletown, quoted in Robert Del Tredici, {The
People of Three Mile Island} (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1981)
(hereafter cited as {People}).
47. {Kemeny Report}, p 35.
48. Pennsylvania Department of Health, {Health Department Releases TMI
Stress Study} (Harrisburg: Department of Health, April 17, 1980)
(hereafter cited as {State Stress Study}); and Tokuhata, interview,
April 1980.
49. Robert Holt, interview, April 1980.
50. {New York Times}, February 21, 1981.
51. {New York Times}, March 27, 1980.
52. Jim Hill, "Residents Still Fearful of TMI, Survey Reports," {York Daily
Record}, March 13, 1980, p. 1.
53. Steve Lawrence, "`We'll Never Forgive or Forget,'" {Daily News} (New
York), March 27, 1980.
54. Anonymous, interview, March 1980.
55. {State Stress Study}; Ben Franklin, "Researchers Find Anxiety in the
Air Near 3 Mile Island," {New York Times}, March 27, 1980; and Ben
Franklin, "Long Distress Found Over Atom Incident," {New York Times},
April 18, 1980.
56. Jane Lee, interview, March 1980.
------
The Taste of Tragedy
For many in the TMI area the outcome of the reactor accident now
seemed as obvious as it had become at Bikini Island, St. George, Utah,
and other communities downwind from years of nuclear bomb testing;
among the GIs who had helped clean up Hiroshima and Nagasaki; among
the 300,000 who had served as guinea pigs at the tests in Nevada and
the Pacific; among millions of citizens exposed to too many medical X
rays; among workers in the uranium mines and mills such as Church
Rock and Shiprock, and at nuclear facilities such as Hanford,
Portsmouth, Paducah, Piketon, U.S. Radium Dial, American Atomics, and
Rocky Flats; among citizens living downwind of Windscale, Kyshtym,
American Atomics, Rocky Flats, and downriver from Church Rock,
Durango, and other mill-tailing sites; among thousands of Americans
living near those tailings piles, some of whom built homes with them,
others of whom suffer from them in their water supply and air; among
millions of Americans near low- and high-level waste dumps with reason
to fear for their own and their children's long-term health; among
farmers near the Shippingport, Arkansas Nuclear One, West Valley,
Vermont Yankee, Rocky Flats, and Fitzpatrick and Nine Mile Point
facilities with reason to believe that their animals are coming to the
same ugly end as the sheep caught in the "Dirty Harry" bomb fallout of
1953; and among citizens near the Dresden, Humboldt, Indian Point,
Shippingport, Millstone, Arkansas One, and seventy-odd other American
reactors with reason to fear that their babies are being killed by
radiation before they live even a month.
Now, in the wake of TMI, the patterns were repeating themselves in
central Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1979 one York couple sued
Metropolitan Edison over the August stillbirth of their daughter. A
Hershey engineer named Steven Scholly saw his daughter born with
Down's syndrome the summer following the accident. The state, he
said, had assured him the reactor emissions could not have caused it.
But, he told us, "We know radiation causes genetic defects."[57]
"It's unbelievable," noted Diane McCleary of Valley Green, less than
five miles from the site. "I've talked to so many people in just this
area who have lost their babies, miscarried or carried them almost
full term then lost them. I've lived in different places and never
heard of anything like this." "It's like I was saying last night,"
added her neighbor Deborah Frey in an interview with {Harrowsmith},
"reading the death columns in the paper, I've never seen so many
babies that live a day or two and then they're dead."[58] "I've been
seeing a lot of strange things," Dr. Joseph Leaser told us a year
after the accident. "It's nothing you can pin down, exactly. But
there are symptoms surfacing here that just can't be explained by
nerves alone."
A general practitioner in Middletown, Leaser is a father of four
children, a part-time horse breeder and a longtime resident of the
area. "We've had a real run on unusual rashes, allergic reactions,
dermatitis, skin lesions, itch, and people complaining of a funny
taste in their mouths," Leaser told us in 1980.
He also wondered about an uncommon aberration he had noticed among
his patients. "We have found abnormal counts of eosinophils--that's a
type of white blood cell--in what I would say is a significant number
of patients," he told us. "It isn't a scientifically controlled
study. But I'd say that when I review blood smears, it seems to me I
see more." A high count of eosinophils, he added, was a "well-known
symptom of excessive radiation exposure."[59]
The mysterious, scientifically unexplained "funny taste" Leaser said
his patients mentioned was cited by numerous residents of both sides
of the Susquehanna--as it had been by Utah residents after the 1953
"Dirty Harry" shot. "We had very bad tastes in our mouths, like an
iron or metal taste," said Fran Cain, the dog breeder living within
eyesight of the plant. "It came right in the house to us. We had it
three or four times."[60]
"It tasted like, you know, like when you're a kid and you put money
in your mouth?" said Jane Lee. "And we all had it."[61]
"It was like having a penny in your mouth," said Bill Whittock, a
retired engineer in his seventies living a quarter mile from the
plant. "I'd be curious to know what degree of radioactivity I was
exposed to."[62]
There were some other symptoms as well. "I got kind of scorched the
first day," said Vance Fisher, a local farmer. "I didn't know what
was going on and I had outdoor work to do, so I was out most of the
day. Got a little burn out of it. Well, it wasn't a sunburn, anyhow.
My face got red."[63]
In the midst of the accident Celeste Crownover of nearby Londonderry
began suffering an unexplained twitch in her leg, which--as of our
June 1980 interview--had not entirely gone away. During the worst of
the radioactive emissions tears began to gush from her eyes, she
suffered a bad metallic taste in her mouth, a burning sensation
covered her arms and legs, and a "fiery blister" broke out on her
shoulder. In the summer her hair fell out "by the hands full." "I am
fifty-one years old," she told us, "and nothing like that has ever
happened to me before or since."[64]
"My daughter got real sick," Becky Mease of Middletown told an NRC
panel. "She had diarrhea for three days straight and headaches and
she became anemic. I didn't know what to do. My little girl is still
getting colds and sinus problems," Mease added. "Now if that's not
because of that power plant, you tell me what it is."[65]
"I haven't felt myself since about three months after the accident,"
we were told by Louise Hardison, whose goats--at 1.2 miles from the
reactor--produced milk with high radiation counts. "I've been tired
all the time. Maybe it's all in my head. But maybe it isn't."[66]
Hardison's complaints of tiredness came nearly two years after the
accident, and were echoed by others in the TMI area, as well as by
people living near Vermont Yankee and Rocky Flats.[67]
Dr. Joseph Leaser told us in early 1981 that "since about six months
after the meltdown, I've noticed that the problem with the white blood
cells has disappeared and hasn't come back."
He added that during the fall 1980 venting of krypton gas from the
TMI-2 core, "a number of patients who didn't know it was happening
came in independently complaining about the funny taste in their
mouths. I hadn't heard of that since the accident, and I haven't
heard any of it again since the venting."
Leaser said he thought it all indicated something very frightening
and dangerous. "These are a rock-ribbed, churchgoing, Bible-thumping
lot of people. They are not the kind who will go off running at the
mouth. Some of these symptoms you can explain away from psychological
stress, there's no doubt about it.
"But some you just can't."[68]
------
57. Steven Scholly, interview, March 1980.
58. Pawlick, "Silent Toll,"
59. Joseph Leaser, interview, March 1980.
60. Del Tredici, {People}.
61. Ibid.
62. Bill Whittock, interview, March 1981; and Del Tredici, {People}.
63. Del Tredici, {People}.
64. {Paxton Herald}, March 26, 1980; and Celeste Crownover, interview,
June 1980.
65. Lawrence, "We'll Never Forgive."
66. Louise Hardison, interview, February 1981.
67. Green, "Vermont Yankee"; and Mixon, interview, May 1981.
68. Leaser, interview, February 1981.
------
* * * * * * *
[part 16 of 18]
15
Conclusion: Surviving the New Fire
Soon after Dr. Gordon MacLeod was fired as Pennsylvania's secretary of
health, he warned that "if another Three Mile Island were to happen
tomorrow, we still would not be ready to deal with the health concerns
involved in a nuclear accident."[1] And one year later he told an
audience at Columbia University that in terms of preparation for a
nuclear emergency, "the people of Pennsylvania are not better off
today, and are perhaps worse off, than they were the day before the
radiation release at TMI."[2]
By April of 1981 he informed the American College of Physicians that
there was still "no radiation health unit anywhere in Pennsylvania,"
and thus "no way to manage the medical aspects of any future
accident." And, he added, "we shall almost surely have one."[3]
That inevitability was underscored the following July when a high-
level DOE study group concluded that two years after the accident the
safety lessons of TMI had not been applied to the thirty-five reactors
being operated by the DOE. Nor warned the panel, did the department
have adequate personnel to operate them safely in the future.[4] The
same charge was made about the nation's commercial plants when the
Presidential Nuclear Safety and Oversight Committee told Ronald Reagan
it doubted the NRC or any other federal agency "has the experience or
the competence to manage atomic power plants."[5] Congressman Edward
Markey (D-Mass.) added that the majority of the nation's seventy-odd
operating commercial power reactors still did not have federally
approved evacuation plans in place.[6] And the staff of the House
Interior Committee concluded in February of 1981 that the managers of
TMI had withheld information on the severity of the accident and had
made misleading statements to state and federal officials. Victor
Stello, director of the NRC's Office of Inspections and Enforcement,
had already called for Metropolitan Edison to be cited for failing to
issue proper reports.[7]
Met Ed in turn was suing the NRC for four billion dollars in
damages, charging the commission had failed to inform them of an
accident at a reactor similar to TMI, thus depriving them of vital
knowledge. The NRC was also attacked by President Carter's Kemeny
Commission on TMI. Their final report concluded, "The evidence
suggests that the NRC has sometimes erred on the side of the
industry's convenience rather than carrying out its primary mission of
assuring safety."[8]
Inherent in that mission has been the responsibility to protect
Americans from radiation. In December of 1979 the NRC lowered the
allowable dose for populations around atomic reactors from 170
millirem per year to 25 millirem. The regulatory change came nine
months after the TMI accident and a full decade after John Gofman and
Arthur Tamplin were viciously attacked and then forced from their jobs
for urging a similar action.
But the new standard may have been just academic. As the GAO
reported in December of 1979, a review of radiation monitoring
programs in eight key states indicated that "many sources of radiation
were not regulated, the coverage of regulated sources was limited, and
there was limited assurance that identified hazards were
corrected."[9] And as the budget-cutting Reagan administration took
office in 1981, the NRC and industry backers moved to speed the
licensing process and gut the monitoring programs around atomic
reactors.
Similar trends were evident in the study of public health. Despite
the findings of Gofman, Tamplin, Pauling, Sakharov, Caldwell, Knapp,
Lyon, Weiss, Martell, Livingston, Pendleton, Sternglass, Caldicott,
Rimland, Larson, Dyson, Morgan, Stewart, Kneale, Bross, Blumenson,
Bertell, Abrams, Kushner, Matanowski, Mancuso, Cobb, Najarian,
Drinker, Flinn, Martland, Wagoner, Archer, Eisenbud, Johnson, Radford,
Winterer, Gottleib, Odin, Goodman, Franke, Steinhilber-Schwab,
Talbott, Jordan, Kepford, Pohl, Lochstet, Resnikoff, Medvedev,
MacLeod, Takeshi, and a host of other "dissident" scientists, doctors,
and researchers in the radiation field, no major systematic steps had
been taken to survey public-health trends around America's nuclear
facilities.
By attacking these experts on an {ad hominum} basis, by ignoring the
findings of "nonprofessional" farmers and private citizens, and by
failing to provide independent studies of their own, the nuclear
industry and public-health authorities have denied thousands of
victims of radiation poisoning access to speedy treatment, and
millions of Americans the right to make an informed decision on this
nation's nuclear policies. Official statistics have been uniformly
sketchy or nonexistent. Nine years after Pennsylvania's Shapp
Commission made its recommendations for modernizing radiation and
health monitoring around nuclear facilities, and more than two years
after TMI, none of the high-level recommendations had been put into
law. "Regrettably," George Tokuhata told us in early 1981, "the
legislature simply has not voted the money."[10]
Nor does the problem end with atomic reactors. Two decades after it
was commissioned by the Atomic Energy Commission, the largest
systematic study of the health of nuclear workers--the Mancuso
Report--remains shrouded in bitter controversy and attempts at
outright suppression. Three decades after the first GIs were marched
up to nuclear bomb testing sites, the military steadfastly refuses to
allow public access to the names of those involuntary "guinea pigs."
Thus the soldiers remain uninformed about the health risks they
incurred, and the public has no knowledge of what the radiation really
did to the 300,000 Americans deliberately exposed in those blasts.
Thirty-five years after the first "tests" of massive radiation
releases on the human populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many of
the health statistics surrounding those bombings remain cloaked in
secrecy and prone to consistent revisions that indicate that the
damage was far worse than the global community has been led to
believe.
In fact all signs indicate that radiation from bomb tests, power
reactors, uranium mines, mills and tailings piles, bomb production
factories, "rear-end" waste dumps, commercial production facilities,
and X-ray machines are far more dangerous than previously expected.
Soon after the TMI accident, for example, a team of fourteen West
German scientists from Heidelberg University estimated that official
judgments by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on how much
plutonium, cesium, and strontium are picked up by plant vegetation may
be as much as one thousand times too low. Thus the doses coming from
production plants, power reactors, bomb tests, and a possible nuclear
war may be far deadlier than previously believed.[11]
The danger is to all living creatures. But perhaps the most
significant toll is levied on the unborn, whose fetal size and
vulnerability make them infinitely susceptible to even the tiniest
doses of radiation. And since all humans must go through the fetal
stage, the whole species is at risk--even to doses heretofore
considered "low."
These dangers have not been lost on the American public. Since the
mid-1970s a movement to stop construction of atomic power reactors has
made a marked impact on American energy planning. Years of costly
legal interventions, hundreds of demonstrations, and thousands of
arrests at nuclear sites around the country have transformed the
peaceful atom from a quiet miracle into a bitter political issue. Had
those demonstrations not taken place, it is unlikely TMI would have
elicited much more than a few passing paragraphs in the national
press.
Now atomic power plants seem very much on the decline. The reasons
are partly financial, partly political. With soaring construction
costs and a stabilizing level of energy demand atomic power is simply
no longer a reasonable investment--if it ever was. Since energy costs
have skyrocketed in the wake of the 1973 Arab oil embargo, the
American public has found it can conserve large quantities of energy
and still survive quite nicely. Utilities that were essentially
coerced into going nuclear at the outset now find that conservation
can ultimately increase profits and cause fewer headaches than the
wonders of atomic fission.[12]
In 1976 there were 219 reactors on line, on order, or under
construction in the U.S. Four years later, after fierce combat in the
neighborhoods, courts, banks, legislatures, and at the plant sites,
the number has slipped to less than 180. In 1980 alone, 16 reactors
were canceled--against no new orders--and 69 plants under construction
were postponed.[13] Several plants have already been permanently shut
at great expense, including Michigan's Fermi I, which suffered a major
accident in 1966; New York's Indian Point I, which lacked a basic
emergency core cooling system; and California's Humboldt reactor,
which was found to be operating directly on top of an earthquake
fault.
In 1981 the builders of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, on the
California coast, were forced to admit the facility had been built
with the wrong set of plans, and that it might not be as earthquake-
resistant as promised. Major questions also arose over the viability
of reactor pressure vessels and cooling systems at plants nationwide,
raising the specter of mass shutdowns and abandonments across the
board. Also in 1981 an Israeli air raid against an Iraqi reactor
raised serious new questions about the wisdom of exporting nuclear
technology.
Nonetheless, the Reagan administration moved to allow spent fuel
reprocessing and to slash basic safety requirements to allow quick
reactor licensing. The move raised concern that even minimum design
and construction standards in domestic and exported plants were being
abandoned.
Doubts were also raised as to whether the lax regulations could save
atomic power. With high interest rates, slumping demand, and growing
skepticism over reactor performance, the administration's regulatory
carte blanche offered no guaranteed rescue from the industry's
economic morass.
Ultimately the "peaceful atom" may be remembered less for its
ability to generate electricity than for its function as a radioactive
warning beacon. If the health indicators at Three Mile Island and
other nuclear facilities are correct, it may take far less radiation
to damage human and animal health than anyone ever imagined. And
that, in turn, may have basic implications for atomic energy's most
visible application--as a tool of war.
For as British historian E. P. Thompson has argued, a hostile
nuclear exchange could "make the worst possible outcome of Three Mile
Island appear as no more than a pistol shot." Not only would entire
cities be destroyed, but the lingering effects of radioactive fallout
would be incalculable, almost beyond our imagination.[14]
The threat of such a holocaust has become increasingly real. In
1980 George Bush, once the U.S. ambassador to China and head of the
CIA, at this writing Vice-president of the United States, was asked by
{Los Angeles Times} reporter Robert Scheer: "How do you win a nuclear
war?" Bush replied: "You have a survivability of command in control,
survivability of industrial potential, protection of a percentage of
your citizens, and you have a capability that inflicts more damage on
the opposition than it can inflict upon you."[15]
Bush later protested that his assessment applied to the minds of
Soviet, not American, war planners. But whosesoever's mind it came
from, the assessment overlooked one all-encompassing factor: though
there may be temporary survivability of some top generals and
politicians, industrial potential, and a few other random survivors,
there will almost certainly be no children or grandchildren left on
this planet to tell about it. A human embryo in its second month of
development weighs 0.1 gram, one 600,000th the weight of its mother.
Radiation doses received by the mother can have enormous impact on the
unborn fetus. Few, if any, could survive the shock of an atmosphere
laden with the amounts of radiation likely to be released in a nuclear
war. And those that did survive might be so thoroughly mutated as to
scarcely warrant the label "human."[16]
In that respect TMI, Kyshtym, Windscale, American Atomics, Church
Rock, Rocky Flats, the radiation industry, the X-ray controversy--they
all serve as vital warning signs. And the hundreds of American bomb
tests in the 1950s and early 1960s offered indicators not originally
intended by the military. If those explosions--now considered
relatively "small" in light of the power of today's warheads--harmed
thousands of GIs and nearby residents, killed thousands of infants and
impaired the growth of thousands more, one can only shudder at what
any atomic exchange--"limited" or otherwise--would do to life on
earth.
Nor would it make much difference where the bombs landed. Four days
after the Chinese exploded a bomb on their own soil in September of
1976, dangerous levels of radiation were recorded in milk throughout
New England. The radioactive cloud then circled the globe and was
monitored as it passed over the East Coast of the United States a
second time, several days later.[17] An American attack on the Soviet
Union or a Soviet attack on America would ultimately have the same
basic impact on future generations in each country. And bombs
manufactured and used, or reactors blown up in smaller countries, will
ultimately kill and maim the children of the nation that sold them the
technology.
This catalogue of radioactive disaster has been neither happy
reading nor pleasant writing. Its conclusion is inescapable--except
for a far more prudent application of medical X rays and other health
aids, the vast bulk of nuclear technology is simply too dangerous for
safe use. There is no "peaceful atom"--only a failed, expensive
experiment that has become far too hot to handle. There is also no
such thing as nuclear war--only radioactive suicide. One nation might
emerge from the holocaust a temporary victor, with those who conspired
to push the button hidden deep in their special shelters. But
ultimately the human race as a whole would not survive.
Citizen action has already drastically changed the course of atomic
planning. Energy conservation and political organizing have led to
the cancellation of scores of atomic reactors. Numerous attempts to
mine and mill uranium in the U.S., Canada, and Australia have been
stopped by public protest. The transportation of nuclear materials
and storage of radioactive waste have been forcefully resisted all
over North America. And despite fierce military pressure, an
atmospheric test ban treaty was signed in 1963--an act that saved
millions of human lives, American and otherwise.
At the dawn of the 1980s, continued underground testing and talk by
the Reagan/Bush regime of "limited" nuclear war and the "winnability"
of a global confrontation sparked major protests in the U.S., Europe,
and Japan. A worldwide campaign to do away with nuclear weapons
altogether rapidly gained steam.
That campaign may become the most vital social force of the 1980s,
and it may also hold the key to all of human history. When Albert
Einstein, in 1947, compared the discovery of nuclear fission to the
discovery of fire, he did not note how long it took primitive human
society to learn to keep that fire from destroying it, or what kinds
of conscious changes were required of the species.
Nor did he calculate how long it would take, or what changes in
consciousness would be necessary, for modern society to survive the
splitting of the atom. He clearly suspected the time allowed for this
second job was short, and that the future of the human race was at
stake. But he also believed that given an informed populace, it could
be done.
------
1. {York Daily Record}, November 5, 1979.
2. Gordon MacLeod, "Politics."
3. Gordon MacLeod, "Reflections on Three Mile Island--Two Years Later,"
prepared for presentation at the American College of Physicians
Sixty-second Annual Meeting, Kansas City, Missouri, April 7, 1981.
4. Irwin Molotsky, "Study of Energy Department's 35 Reactors Finds Safety
Deficiencies," {New York Times}, July 7, 1981, p. A-14.
5. James Foster, "Presidential Task Force Claims Utility Executives Lack
Nuclear Knowledge," {Columbus Citizen-Journal}, May 11, 1981, p. 10.
6. Edward J. Markey, "One Year After TMI, And Danger Remains," {Boston
Globe}, March 28, 1980.
7. Philip Shabecoff, "Reactor Data Said Withheld," New York Times News
Service, February 10, 1981.
8. {Kemeny Report}, p. 19.
9. GAO, {Radiation Control Programs Provide Limited Protection},
HRD-80-25 (Washington, D.C.: GAO, December 4, 1979).
10. Tokuhata, interview, February 1981.
11. Dick Brukenfeld, "A New German Study Challenges the NRC's Assurances,"
{Washington Post}, November 11, 1979.
12. Jay Mathews, "A New Energy Strategy--Conservation," {Washington Post},
June 2, 1981, p. 1.
13. AIF, "A Rocky Road to Recovery."
14. E. P. Thompson, "A Letter to America," {Nation}, January 24, 1981.
15. Bill Stahl, "Bush Explains Views on `Winning' A-War," {Los Angeles
Times}, February 6, 1980.
16. Griffiths and Ballantine, {Silent Slaughter}, p. 147.
17. Wasserman, {Energy War}.
------
______________________________________________________________________________
* * * * * * *
Appendix A
The Basics of Radiation and Health
Ionizing radiation comes from an instability in the fundamental
building block of all matter--the atom. It is a phenomenon involving
the interchangeability of matter and energy first described by
Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Einstein understood that small
amounts of mass can be converted to very large amounts of energy--with
the conversion ratio described by the very large number of the speed
of light squared.
This energy, in turn, can be lethal to the human body--in particular
the cell structure.
A stable atom is made up of negatively charged electrons that
revolve in orbit around a nucleus composed of an equal number of
protons. Also contained in the nucleus are neutrons, which have no
electrical charge but which are endowed with a "binding energy" that
keeps the nucleus together. Protons and neutrons account for more
than 99.9 percent of the atom's weight and determine the basic
properties of the element involved.
When an atom has an imbalance between protons and electrons it is
considered unstable, or radioactive. Unstable atoms are called
{radioisotopes} or {radionuclides}. In the process of achieving
stability a part of the nucleus of a radioisotope disintegrates and
emits particles and energy. It does this until it reaches stable
equilibrium and is no longer radioactive. Thus radioactive elements
travel through a "decay chain," emitting particles and energy until
they transform into lighter, stable elements at the end of their
chain.
The {half-life} of a radioactive substance describes the time it
takes for one half of any quantity of it to decay into the next
lighter element along its decay chain. Often, complete radioactive
decay involves very long periods of time. For example, uranium 238
takes about twenty-eight billion years for half of it to decay into a
stable form of lead.
Radiation is {ionizing} when it has enough energy to remove one or
more electrons from an atom with which it comes in contact. When this
occurs, the ionized atom is made chemically reactive and capable of
damaging living tissue. Nonionizing radiation--as in the form of
microwaves--falls on the other end of the electromagnetic spectrum and
does not have sufficient energy to physically displace electrons of
atoms. It can also, however, be damaging to human health.
Types of Radiation
There are essentially five types of ionizing radiation with which we
are concerned here:
1. {Alpha radiation} is created when two protons and two neutrons
are emitted from the nucleus of an atom. Alpha particles have the
same nucleus as the helium atom but lack the two electrons that make
helium stable. Alpha particles travel at speeds up to ten thousand
miles per second. Because they are so large in "subatomic" terms,
alpha particles have been likened to large-caliber bullets. They tend
to collide with molecules in the air and are easily slowed down. A
thin sheet of paper or two inches of air can usually stop an alpha
particle.
Unfortunately so can a human cell. When alpha-emitting elements are
inhaled or ingested into the body, the high-energy particles they emit
can rip into the cells of sensitive internal soft tissues, creating
serious damage.
Alpha particles are emitted by a wide array of heavy elements,
including plutonium, a by-product of nuclear fission; and radon,
which seeps into the environment from the uranium-mining and -milling
process; and radon gas, whose decay or "daughter" elements are
carried into the atmosphere from uranium-mining wastes.
2. {Beta radiation} is composed of streams of electrons that often
travel at close to the speed of light. In some cases beta particles
are emitted from a nucleus when a neutron breaks down into a proton
and electron. The proton stays in the atom's core while the electron
shoots out. Because they move faster than alpha particles, and weigh
much less, beta particles are far more penetrating than alpha
particles. Sheets of metal and heavy clothing are required to stop
them.
Beta emissions to the skin can lead to skin cancer. And like
elements that emit alpha particles, beta-emitters can be very
dangerous when inhaled or ingested into the body. Beta radiation can
be emitted from many substances released by nuclear bombs and power
plants, including strontium 90 and tritium.
3. {Neutron emissions} occur when the nucleus of an atom is struck
by a particle that causes the unsticking of the "binding energy" in
the atom's core. The resulting disequilibrium causes neutron
particles to be shot out in a way that makes them capable of
penetrating solid steel walls. Several feet of water or concrete are
required to stop most of them.
Because of their tremendous penetrating ability, neutrons can be
very damaging to the human body, a fact well known by the U.S.
military, which is developing a bomb designed to kill people (but
preserve property) by emitting large quantities of lethal neutron
fragments. When neutrons strike atoms of elements that are not
fissionable, they can render them radioactive by changing their atomic
structure. For example, in a building near a neutron bomb explosion,
the neutrons can change stable cobalt in the steel girders to cobalt
60, an emitter of highly penetrating gamma radiation.
4. {Gamma radiation} is a form of electromagnetic or wave energy
similar in some respects to X rays, radio waves, and light. Like X
rays, gamma radiation is highly energetic and can penetrate matter
much more easily than alpha or beta particles. Gamma rays are usually
emitted from the nucleus when it undergoes transformations. An inch
of lead or iron, eight inches of heavy concrete, or three feet of sod
may be required to stop most of the gamma rays from an intense source.
5. {X rays} are produced whenever high-energy electrons are
accelerated or decelerated as they penetrate matter. X rays are
produced by machine when electrons are accelerated to extremely high
speed and are then crashed into a solid target. They are also
produced in nuclear fission when electrons are accelerated out of the
fissioning nucleus and are then slowed down by air and other
materials. The energy released in the collision is a form of
electromagnetic radiation, and is comparable in penetrating power to
gamma rays. Because X rays can expose film after passing through some
substances--such as human flesh and some building materials--they have
been widely used in medicine and some industrial processes.
It is believed by many that because they are directly applied to the
human body, medical X rays are at present the single greatest source
of external exposure to human-made radiation. But unlike radioactive
products that can escape into the environment and concentrate in the
food chain, X-ray exposure can be controlled more easily than the
fallout from a nuclear bomb or power plant.
Radiation and Human Health
Radiation attacks the human body at its most basic level--the cell
structure.
Cells carry out the vital functions necessary to sustain and develop
all living creatures. Over ten trillion cells make up the human body.
The cell takes in food, gets rid of wastes, produces protein vital to
life, and reproduces itself. Just as all living things are made up of
cells, so every new cell is produced from another cell.
The nature of the cell is determined by the genetic material in its
nucleus. Enormously complex, and not fully understood as yet, the
genetic "coding" in each nucleus is carried by a complex protein
called DNA--deoxyribonucleic acid. This DNA is tightly coiled in the
forty-six chromosomes, which are stored in the cell nucleus.
Surrounding the nucleus is the cytoplasm, the "factory" that carries
out the directions of the DNA intelligence center. The cytoplasm in
turn is contained by a semipermeable membrane, the cell wall. It is
the whole of this cell mechanism--cell wall, cytoplasm, and nucleus--
that forms the basis of human life.
When a radioactive particle or ray strikes a cell, one of at least
four things can happen:
1. It may pass through the cell without doing any damage;
2. It may damage the cell, but in a way that the cell can recover
and repair itself before it divides;
3. It may kill the cell;
4. Or, worst of all, it may damage the cell in such a way that the
damage is repeated when the cell divides.
Three of those four circumstances can have health effects. The
issue of what happens to a cell once it repairs itself, for example,
is the subject of scientific debate. Dr. Alice Stewart has compared
the radiation-damaged cell to a broken plate. Though the plate can be
glued together again, its original integrity will never be the same.
Every time it is stressed, it can be more prone to break. The
repaired cell may not react to disease or physical injury as well as
an undamaged cell; when it reproduces, this defect may be passed on.
Cell killing can also be harmful. Thousands of dead cells are
eliminated from the human body every day, and thus the body has a
certain tolerance for it when radiation adds to the natural toll. In
fact radiation is used in some forms of therapy to kill cancerous
cells, to prevent their reproducing. But if enough cells are killed
by radiation, it can seriously impair bodily functions or cause
blockages in the body's circulatory system.
The prime danger from radiation striking a cell, however, comes from
the potential for damage to the DNA coding and the creation of
cancerous cells. If the DNA is damaged by a ray or particle, it may
reproduce itself in an abnormal manner that is, in essence, the basis
of radiation-induced cancer. It is still not fully understood how
radiation actually induces cancer or genetic damage in cells. Drs.
John Gofman and Arthur Tamplin theorized in the early 1970s that when
radiation damages a cell "a massive nonspecific disorganization" and
destruction of chemical bonds occurs that is similar to "the effect of
a jagged piece of shrapnel passing through a tissue."
Damage can occur to the cell wall, cytoplasm, and nucleus. It is
most serious, however, when the DNA or genetic coding in the nucleus
is harmed. Dr. Karl Z. Morgan has likened the disorganization by
radiation of the cell DNA structure to a madman loose in a vast
library, randomly tearing out pages of ancient, irreplaceable
manuscripts. Once the DNA is damaged, distorted messages can be
transmitted to the cell and passed on through reproduction. Thus
thousands of mutated clone cells can reproduce themselves, forming the
basis for tumors and a devastated bodily system. By the time a tumor
can be seen or felt by the touch, it is composed of several million of
these abnormal cells.
There has been considerable debate among radiobiologists about how
often a cell must be hit by radiation to mutate into a cancer. Dr. E.
B. Lewis in 1957 advanced the idea that it took just one "hit" to
produce irreversible cell damage. Others believe it may take two or
more. There is little dispute, however, over the fact that the cell
is most vulnerable when it is dividing. The human fetus, infants, and
young children--whose cells are multiplying most frequently--are thus
the most sensitive to radiation damage; blood-forming organs such as
the bone marrow are also particularly vulnerable.
Radiation can also damage the body's immune system and cause a
general degeneration in the health of the cell structures. Thus
radiation may cause illness and premature aging without actually
bringing on the more easily isolated diseases of cancer and leukemia.
Susceptible Groups
In recent years controversy has arisen over the particular
vulnerability of infants {in utero} and small children to the ill-
effects of radiation. Exposure of the fetus to radiation during all
stages of pregnancy increases the chances of developing leukemia and
childhood cancers. Because their cells are dividing so rapidly, and
because there are relatively so few of them involved in the vital
functions of the body in the early stages, embryos are most vulnerable
to radiation in the first trimester--particularly in the first two
weeks after conception. This period carries the highest risk of
radiation-induced abortion and adverse changes in organ development.
During this stage of development the tiny fetus can be fifteen times
more sensitive to radiation-induced cancer than in its last trimester
of development, and up to a thousand or more times more sensitive than
an adult. In general it is believed that fetuses in the very early
stages of development are most vulnerable to penetrating radiation
such as X rays and gamma rays.
In all stages, they are vulnerable to emitting isotopes ingested by
the mother. For example, if a pregnant mother inhales or ingests
radioiodine, it can be carried through the placenta to the fetus,
where it can lodge in the fetal thyroid and where its gamma and beta
emissions can cause serious damage to the developing organ. Once the
fetal thyroid is damaged, changes in the hormonal balance of the body
may result in serious--possibly fatal--consequences for the
development of the child through pregnancy, early childhood, and
beyond. Such effects include underweight and premature birth, poorly
developed lungs causing an inability to breathe upon delivery, mental
retardation, and general ill-health.
Other emitters can lodge in other fetal organs. For example,
yttrium-90, a decay product of strontium 90, can gravitate toward the
pituitary gland. Overall, fetal irradiation during the second and
third trimester has been linked to microcephaly (small head size),
stunted growth and mental retardation, central nervous system defects,
and behavioral changes. Exposure of the fetus to radiation during all
stages of pregnancy increases the chances of developing leukemia and
childhood cancers.
Young children also undergo more rapid cell division than adults, as
do children in puberty. This rapid growth makes them very susceptible
to radiation damage. Also at high risk are the elderly and
chronically ill. These groups have weakened immune systems because of
less active red bone marrow. Healthy immune systems can often isolate
and remove damaged cells before malignancies develop. Older people
generally have less vigorous immune systems; they have also generally
experienced more radiation from both natural and human-made sources
than young people, and thus may be more susceptible to additional
exposure.
Women are also considered to be twice as sensitive to radiation as
men because of their predominance in contracting breast and thyroid
cancers.
Cancers shown to be initiated by radiation include leukemia, and
cancers of the pancreas, lung, large intestine, thyroid, liver, and
breast. Life-shortening anemia and other blood abnormalities, benign
tumors, cataracts, and lowered fertility are other random effects
attributed to radiation exposure.
Genetic Effects
The health effects of radiation with the greatest long-term
implications are those centered on damage to the genes. Radiation is
known to increase genetic mutations that can be passed on from
generation to generation. Natural background radiation contributes
some genetic mutations, and has been labeled by some as a factor in
the evolutionary process. Some inherited mutations change a plant or
animal so that it is better equipped to live in its surroundings.
But problems arise with artificially produced mutations. No
mutation randomly produced by human-made radiation has been known to
be beneficial. And mutations may not surface for generations. In
1972 the National Academy of Sciences Advisory Committee on the
Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR committee) stated that
"the spectrum of radiation-caused genetic disease is almost as wide as
the spectrum from all causes." They added that "a genetic death may
be the death of an embryo that no one ever knows about, or it may be
the failure to reproduce. On the other hand, it may be a lingering
and painful death in early adult life that causes great distress."
Based on the BEIR committee's assumptions of genetic risk from
ionizing radiation, the risks to future generations can multiply
enormously through time. If a single exposed radiation worker
produces two children, who in turn have two children each, and so on
through the generations, by the twentieth generation there may be as
many as 2,097,152 human beings put at risk from the single exposed
worker.
___________________________________________________________________________
Sensitivity of Various Tissues to Cancer Induction by Radiation
___________________________________________________________________________
Relative Sensitivity
Spontaneous to Radiation
Site or Type Incidence Induction
of Cancer of Cancer of Cancer Remarks
___________________________________________________________________________
{Major radiation-induced cancers}
Female breast Very high High Puberty increases sensitivity
Thyroid Low Very high, Low mortality rate
especially
females
Lung (bronchus) Very high Moderate Quantitative effect of
smoking uncertain
Leukemia Moderate Very high Especially myeloid leukemia
Alimentary tract High Moderate Occurs especially in colon
to low
{Minor radiation-induced cancers}
Pharynx Low Moderate -
Liver and biliary Low Moderate -
tract
Pancreas Moderate Moderate -
___________________________________________________________________________
Lymphomas Moderate Moderate Lymphosarcoma and multiple
myeloma, but not Hodgkin's
disease
Kidney and bladder Moderate Low -
Brain and nervous Low Low -
system
Salivary glands Very low Low -
Bone Very low Low -
Skin High Low Low mortality. High dose
necessary?
{Sites or tissues in which magnitude of radiation-induced cancer is uncertain}
Larynx Moderate Low -
Nasal sinuses Very low Low -
Parathyroid Very low Low -
Ovary Moderate Low -
Connective tissues Very low Low -
{Sites or tissues in which radiation-induced cancer has not been observed}
Prostate Very high Absent? -
Uterus and cervix Very high Absent? -
Testis Low Absent? -
Mesentery and Very low Absent? -
mesothelium
Chronic lymphatic Low Absent? -
leukemia
___________________________________________________________________________
Source: 1980 BEIR Report
High- and Low-Level Radiation
Growing controversy has focused on what levels of radiation exposure
are capable of doing the most harm. It has long been assumed that the
most serious harm came from high-level exposures, such as those
produced by the flash of the explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or
those endured by scientists killed at the Los Alamos Laboratory while
experimenting with primitive fission reactions. One of the most
serious effects of high-level exposure to the body is the destruction
of the red bone marrow. Once this occurs, a person's ability to
resist infection is seriously compromised and can lead to chronic
illness and early death. Other high-dose effects include skin burns,
cataracts, loss of hair, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting,
sterility, and fatigue.
It now appears that constant exposure to small doses of radiation
may also be extremely dangerous. A 1972 study by Dr. Abram Petkau
found that prolonged exposures of low-dose radiation could do more
damage to cell membranes than short flashes of intense doses. This
insight, along with studies of fetal irradiation over long periods of
time, has lent weight to a body of evidence indicating that such doses
may be causing unexpected disease among far more people than
previously believed.
Radiation Measurements
Some of the units used to measure radiation are {curies}, {rads},
and {rems}.
The {curie} (Ci) is so named to honor Marie Curie, who discovered
radium. A curie refers to the amount of radioactivity in a gram of
radium: twenty-seven billion disintegrations per second. There are
many billion curies of radioactivity in an atomic reactor. The curie
is often broken down into smaller units, with one curie equaling one
thousand millicuries (mCi), one million microcuries (uCi), or one
trillion pico-curies (pCi). The curie is a measurement of gross
radioactivity and does not refer to biological damage.
The {rad} (radiation absorbed dose) measures the amount of radiation
absorbed by body tissues. Rads usually describe doses from both
external penetrating radiation and from radionuclides contained within
the body, but do not measure specific biological damage. A rad to the
hand, for example, is not considered as dangerous as a rad distributed
over the whole body.
The {rem} (radiation equivalent man) is currently considered the
most appropriate for measuring biological damage from radiation. It
reflects the fact that some forms of radiation create more damage in a
given exposure than others. The rem is calculated by multiplying the
rad dose by modifying factors calculated on considerations of
ionization and radiosensitivity of the tissues involved.
In terms of measuring X and gamma rays, the rad and the rem are the
same relative to their biological damage potential. But alpha- and
beta-emitters do much more biological damage when they are taken
inside the body and lodged in sensitive tissues than when there is
exposure just from outside the body. The rem measurement factors in
these differences.
Because the units are too large for many uses, the prefix milli (m)
is often used with roentgens, rads, and rems to signify smaller
quantities. One rad or rem equals one thousand millirads (mrad) or
one thousand millirems (mrems).
When radiation doses are measured for large populations, the unit
{person rem} is used. This is calculated by multiplying the total
number of people exposed times their average dose in rems. Or it can
be the actual sum of all the doses they receive. For example, ten
thousand person rems is a dose received by five thousand people
exposed to two rems each; or by ten thousand people exposed to one
rem each. According to Dr. John Gofman, at least one death will
result for every 300 person-rem dose. The nuclear industry says some
2000 person rems escaped at Three Mile Island.
Fission and Fusion
Radioactive rays and fallout from atomic weapons and power plants
are created in the nuclear fission process, adding to global radiation
levels. In fission a heavy radioactive element--usually uranium 235
or plutonium 239--is struck with a slow-moving neutron. The neutron
trips a reaction within the fissionable nuclei that causes them to
split apart, releasing large quantities of energy, radioactive
particles, and large numbers of fission by-products--radioactive
isotopes of different elements.
When there is a sufficient quantity of fissionable material
present--called a {critical mass}--a {chain reaction} occurs. Here
atoms are struck by particles and energy from other fissioning atoms,
leading to more releases and collisions until a self-generating
explosive situation is created. In a bomb it is this explosive power
that is used to inflict damage. In a reactor the power is modified by
"control rods"--usually made of boron--which absorb some of the
particles and energy and allow reactor operators to manipulate the
speed of the chain reaction. The energy from the fissioning core is
then converted to steam, by the circulation of water through it, which
is then used to turn turbines to generate electricity.
In the course of the reaction, nuclear fission creates a wide array
of radioactive by-products emitting gamma rays, alpha, beta, and
neutron radiation--plus several hundred radioisotopes created by the
fission process. These include fission products such as cobalt 60,
strontium 90, iodine 131, xenon 133, cesium 137, and plutonium 239.
The other principal human-made source of atomic energy is nuclear
fusion, which is in a sense the opposite of fission. In fusion, light
atoms such as hydrogen are brought together under conditions of
enormous heat and pressure. Hydrogen atoms then "fuse" together into
helium. But in the process additional mass is lost--the helium atom
weighs less than the hydrogen atoms that created it--and this
excessive mass is released as energy.
Fusion is the process by which the sun creates heat and light. It
is also the basis of the hydrogen bomb. The federal government is
actively pursuing the use of fusion energy to produce electricity.
But the process is not entirely "clean." Radioactive tritium is one
by-product of fusion; so are large quantities of neutrons which could
render a fusion-reactor building highly radioactive after a short
period of time.
In nuclear weaponry a fission explosion is required to create the
conditions under which a fusion--hydrogen--explosion can take place.
Thus the plutonium "triggers" built at Rocky Flats serve as the basis
of hydrogen weaponry. This weaponry is sometimes called
"thermonuclear" because of the huge amounts of heat involved.
Other Sources of Ionizing Radiation
It is generally acknowledged that the amount of radioactive bomb
debris now lacing the air flow of the earth's atmosphere is in the
tens of tons. Scientists now estimate that everyone living in the
Northern Hemisphere carries some fallout debris--including plutonium-
-in their bodies. New York City residents, for example, eat plutonium
in their bread every day.
It is also true that each of us is exposed every day to certain
quantities of {background radiation} that are naturally produced.
Some of this comes from {cosmic radiation} from outer space. Two
forms of this radiation are speeding protons and neutrons, which enter
the earth's atmosphere and collide with the air we breathe. Carbon
14, which can cause long-term biological damage including genetic
mutations, is created when a cosmic neutron collides with nitrogen in
the atmosphere. People who live in higher altitudes generally receive
more cosmic radiation than those in the lowlands because there is less
protective atmosphere for shielding.
Radiation exposures also result from the natural radioactivity in
many of the earth's minerals. There are some extreme examples:
thorium-bearing sands in Kerala, India, and soils in Brazil measure as
much as twenty times above average background levels. Isotopes
present in the body, such as potassium 40 and radium 226, also
contribute to background levels.
Overall, background radiation levels in the United States are
estimated to range from 100 to 150 millirem per year. These amounts
are not harmless; background radiation is generally acknowledged to
cause thousands of cancer deaths every year and even more genetic
mutations in the United States, and far more globally.
Human-made radiation can add to that toll. Fallout from nuclear
weapons testing, atomic reactor emissions, the mining and milling of
uranium, the creation and storage of nuclear wastes, the
transportation and use of radioactive materials in industry, and the
exposure of millions of people to medical X rays all have their costs
in terms of human health.
In recent years knowledge that radiation tends to concentrate
through the food chain far more intensively than previously believed
has contributed to growing fears of human-made ionizing radiation.
That, in turn, has coupled with a basic acknowledgment on the part of
the global medical community that the human body is far more sensitive
to radiation than previously believed. As the 1980 edition of the
{Encyclopaedia Britannica} notes, "it can be concluded that there is
no `safe' level of radiation exposure, and no dose set so low that the
risk is zero."
* * * * * * *
[part 17 of 18]
Appendix B
Summary of Atomic Bomb Tests
"Summary of Announced United States Nuclear Tests"
(Source: U.S. Department of Energy)
____________________________________________________________________
{Totals by Year}
1945-- 3 1966--40
1946-- 2 1967--28
1947-- O 1968--33
1948-- 3 1969--29
1949-- O 1970--30
1950-- O 1971--11
1951--16 1972-- 8
1952--10 1973-- 9
1953--11 1974-- 8
1954-- 6 1975--16
1955--18 1976--16
1956--18 1977--12
1957--32 1978--13
1958--77 1979--15
1959-- O 1980--17
1960-- O
1961--10 TOTAL: 691
1962--98 (Total includes 12
1963--43 joint American-
1964--30 British tests
1965--29 since 1962.)
____________________________________________________________________
{Totals by Type} {Totals by Purpose}
Airdrop/Airburst 55 Warhead Development/Assessment 606
(mid-air) (more than 85 percent for
Tower 56 new weapons design testing)
Barge 36 "Safety Experiments" 33
(in shallow lagoon) Plowshare 27
Surface 28 ("Peaceful uses" program)
(sea-level or Joint US-UK 12
ground-level) "Vela Uniform" 7
Balloon 25 (Detection tests)
Rocket 15 Storage/Transportation 4
Combat 2
TOTAL ATMOSPHERIC: 212 (Hiroshima and Nagasaki)
Shaft or Tunnel 465
Crater 9
TOTAL UNDERGROUND: 474
TOTAL UNDERWATER: 5
{Totals by Location}
TOTAL PACIFIC: 106
Eniwetok 43
Christmas Island Area 24
Bikini 23
Johnson Island Area 12
Elsewhere in Pacific 4
TOTAL NEVADA TEST SITE: 563
TOTAL SOUTH ATLANTIC: 3
MISC. TOTAL: 19
Nevada, outside NTS 7
Amchitka, Alaska 3
Alamogordo, New Mexico 1
Japan 2
Carlsbad, New Mexico 1
Hattiesburg, Mississippi 2
Farmington, New Mexico 1
Grand Valley, Colorado 1
Rifle, Colorado 1
* * * * * * *
Appendix C
Commercial Nuclear Power Reactors in the U.S.
December 31, 1980
This list includes only commercial nuclear reactors on order, with
limited work authorizations, construction permits or operating
licenses. Status is indicated by: O--order; LWA--limited work
authorization; C--construction permit, and bold face type [given
lines will have underbars instead of space characters --ratitor]--
operating license.
A single asterisk indicates that the estimated commercial operation
date of the unit has been deferred indefinitely and the new date has
not been announced. A double asterisk indicates that no start-up date
has yet been established.
{ Net Comm'l
State and Utility Plant Location M/We Operation}
ALABAMA
Alabama Power Co.___________Joseph M. Farley 1_Houston County____860____12/77
Alabama Power Co.___________Joseph M. Farley 2_Houston County____860____10/80-a
Tennessee Valley Authority__Browns Ferry 1_____Decatur_________1,067_____8/74
Tennessee Valley Authority__Browns Ferry 2_____Decatur_________1,067_____3/75
Tennessee Valley Authority__Browns Ferry 3_____Decatur_________1,067____12/85
Tennessee Valley Authority Bellefonte 1(C) Scottsboro 1,213 9/86
Tennessee Valley Authority Bellefonte 2(C) Scottsboro 1,213 6/84
ARIZONA
Arizona Public Service Co. Palo Verde 1(C) Wintersburg 1,270 5/83
Arizona Public Service Co. Palo Verde 2(C) Wintersburg 1,270 5/84
Arizona Public Service Co. Palo Verde 3(C) Wintersburg 1,270 5/86
ARKANSAS
Arkansas Power & Light Co.__Arkansas Nuclear One--1_Russellville__850___12/74
Arkansas Power & Light Co.__Arkansas Nuclear One--2_Russellville__912____3/80-b
CALIFORNIA
Pacific Gas & Electric Co.__Humboldt Bay-c_____Humboldt Bay________65____8/63
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. Diablo Canyon 1(C) Avila Beach 1,084 0/81
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. Diablo Canyon 2(C) Avila Beach 1,106 0/81
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. unit 1(O) - 1,168 *
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. unit 2(O) - 1,168 *
Sacramento Municipal Utility District_Rancho Seco 1_Clay Station__918____4/75
Southern California Edison Co.__San Onofre 1______San Clemente____436____1/68
Southern California Edison Co. San Onofre 2(C) San Clemente 1,100 12/81
Southern California Edison Co. San Onofre 3(C) San Clemente 1,100 2/83
-a On 10/23/80 received limited operating license to load fuel, reach
criticality and do power testing.
-b Received operating license 9/1/78 and went into commercial operation
3/26/80.
-c Shut down 7/2/76 for seismic modifications. Operational date uncertain.
{ Net Comm'l
State and Utility Plant Location M/We Operation}
COLORADO
Public Service Co. of Colorado__Fort St. Vrain_Platteville_______330_____1/79
CONNECTICUT
Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co._Haddam Neck___Haddam Neck____575_____1/68
Northeast Nuclear Energy Co.____Millstone 1____Waterford_________660_____3/71
Northeast Nuclear Energy Co.____Millstone 2____Waterford_________870____12/75
Northeast Nuclear Energy Co. Millstone 3(C) Waterford 1,150 5/86
FLORIDA
Florida Power Corp._________Crystal River 3____Red Level_________825_____3/77
Florida Power & Light Co.___Turkey Point 3_____Turkey Point______666____12/72
Florida Power & Light Co.___Turkey Point 4_____Turkey Point______666_____9/73
Florida Power & Light Co.___St. Lucie 1________St. Lucie County__777____12/76
Florida Power & Light Co. St. Lucie 2(C) St. Lucie County 777 5/83
GEORGIA
Georgia Power Co.___________Edwin I. Hatch 1___Baxley____________786____12/75
Georgia Power Co.___________Edwin I. Hatch 2___Baxley____________790_____9/79
Georgia Power Co. Alvin W. Vogtle 1(C) Waynesboro 1,100 5/85
Georgia Power Co. Alvin W. Vogtle 2(C) Waynesboro 1,100 11/87
ILLINOIS
Commonwealth Edison Co._____Dresden 1-a________Morris____________200_____7/60
Commonwealth Edison Co._____Dresden 2__________Morris____________794_____7/70
Commonwealth Edison Co._____Dresden 3__________Morris____________794____11/71
Commonwealth Edison Co._____Zion 1_____________Zion____________1,040____12/73
Commonwealth Edison Co._____Zion 2_____________Zion____________1,040_____9/74
Commonwealth Edison Co._____Quad Cities 1______Cordova___________789_____2/73
Commonwealth Edison Co._____Quad Cities 2______Cordova___________789_____3/73
Commonwealth Edison Co. LaSalle 1(C) Seneca 1,078 6/81
Commonwealth Edison Co. LaSalle 2(C) Seneca 1,078 6/82
Commonwealth Edison Co. Braidwood 1(C) Braidwood 1,120 10/85
Commonwealth Edison Co. Braidwood 2(C) Braidwood 1,120 10/86
Commonwealth Edison Co. Byron 1(C) Byron 1,120 10/83
Commonwealth Edison Co. Byron 2(C) Byron 1,120 10/84
Commonwealth Edison Co. Carroll County 1(O) Savanna 1,150 10/92
Commonwealth Edison Co. Carroll County 2(O) Savanna 1,150 10/93
Illinois Power Co. Clinton 1(C) Clinton 950 8/83
Illinois Power Co. Clinton 2(C) Clinton 950 *
INDIANA
Northern Indiana Public Service Co.
Bailly Nuclear 1(C)-b Dunes Acres 644 12/89
Public Service Indiana Marble Hill 1(C) Madison 1,130 12/86
Public Service Indiana Marble Hill 2(C) Madison 1,130 12/87
-a Shut down 10/31/78 to upgrade ECCS chemical clean and refuel. Estimated
startup 6/86.
-b Canceled, 1981.
{ Net Comm'l
State and Utility Plant Location M/We Operation}
IOWA
Iowa Electric Light & Power Co.__Duane Arnold__Palo______________538_____2/75
Iowa Power & Light Co. Vandalia(O) Vandalia 1,270 *
KANSAS
Kansas Gas & Electric Co. Wolf Creek(C) Burlington 1,150 4/84
LOUISIANA
Gulf States Utilities Co. River Bend 1(C) St. Francisville 934 4/84
Gulf States Utilities Co. River Bend 2(C) St. Francisville 934 *
Louisiana Power & Light Co. Waterford 3(C) Taft 1,165 3/83
MAINE
Maine Yankee Atomic Power Co._Maine Yankee_____Wiscasset_________825____12/72
MARYLAND
Baltimore Gas & Electric Co.__Calvert Cliffs 1_Lusby_____________845_____5/75
Baltimore Gas & Electric Co.__Calvert Cliffs 2_Lusby_____________845_____4/77
MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Edison Co.___________Pilgrim 1__________Plymouth__________655____12/72
Boston Edison Co. Pilgrim 2(O) Plymouth 1,150 *
Yankee Atomic Electric Co.__Yankee Rowe________Rowe______________175_____7/61
MICHIGAN
Consumers Power Co._________Big Rock Point_____Charlevoix_________63_____3/63
Consumers Power Co._________Palisades__________South Haven_______740____12/71
Consumers Power Co. Midland 1(C) Midland 522 7/84
Consumers Power Co. Midland 2(C) Midland 807 12/83
Detroit Edison Co. Enrico Fermi 2(C) Lagoona Beach 1,093 11/83
Indiana & Michigan Electric Co._Donald C. Cook 1_Bridgman______1,054_____8/75
Indiana & Michigan Electric Co._Donald C. Cook 2_Bridgman______1,100_____7/78
MINNESOTA
Northern States Power Co.___Monticello_________Monticello________545_____6/71
Northern States Power Co.___Prairie Island 1___Red Wing__________530____12/73
Northern States Power Co.___Prairie Island 2___Red Wing__________530____12/74
MISSISSIPPI
Mississippi Power & Light Co. Grand Gulf 1(C) Port Gibson 1,250 4/82
Mississippi Power & Light Co. Grand Gulf 2(C) Port Gibson 1,250 4/86
Tennessee Valley Authority Yellow Creek 1(C) Luka 1,285 4/88
Tennessee Valley Authority Yellow Creek 2(C) Luka 1,285 *
MISSOURI
Union Electric Co. Callaway 1(C) Callaway County 1,150 10/82
Union Electric Co. Callaway 2(C) Callaway County 1,150 4/88
NEBRASKA
Nebraska Public Power District_Cooper__________Brownville________778_____7/74
Omaha Public Power District_Fort Calhoun 1_____Fort Calhoun______490_____9/73
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Public Service Co. of New Hampshire Seabrook 1(C) Seabrook 1,150 0/83
Public Service Co. of New Hampshire Seabrook 2(C) Seabrook 1,150 0/85
NEW JERSEY
Jersey Central Power & Light Co.__Oyster Creek__Lacey Township___650____12/69
Public Service Electric & Gas Co._Salem 1______Salem___________1,090_____6/77
Public Service Electric & Gas Co._Salem 2______Salem___________1,115_____4/80-a
Public Service Electric & Gas Co. Hope Creek 1(C) Salem County 1,067 12/86
Public Service Electric & Gas Co. Hope Creek 2(C) Salem County 1,067 12/89
NEW YORK
Consolidated Edison Co. of New York, Inc._Indian Point 2__Buchanan__873__8/73
Power Authority of the State of New York__Indian Point 3__Buchanan__965__8/76
Power Authority of the State of New York_James A. FitzPatrick__Scriba_821_7/75
Long Island Lighting Co. Shoreham(C) Brookhaven 854 1/83
Niagara Mohawk Power Corp.__Nine Mile Point 1__Oswego____________620____12/69
Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. Nine Mile Point 2(C) Oswego 1,080 10/86
Rochester Gas & Electric Corp.__Robert E. Ginna__Rochester_______470_____7/70
-a 4/21/80 received limited operating license to load fuel, reach criticality
and do power testing.
{ Net Comm'l
State and Utility Plant Location M/We Operation}
NORTH CAROLINA
Carolina Power & Light Co.__Brunswick 1________Southport_________821_____3/77
Carolina Power & Light Co.__Brunswick 2________Southport_________821____11/75
Carolina Power & Light Co. Shearon Harris 1(C) New Hill 900 3/85
Carolina Power & Light Co. Shearon Harris 2(C) New Hill 900 3/88
Carolina Power & Light Co. Shearon Harris 3(C) New Hill 900 3/94
Carolina Power & Light Co. Shearon Harris 4(C) New Hill 900 3/92
Duke Power Co. William McGuire 1(C) Cowans Ford Dam 1,180 7/81
Duke Power Co. William McGuire 2(C) Cowans Ford Dam 1,180 6/83
Duke Power Co. Thomas L. Perkins 1(O) Davie County 1,280 *
Duke Power Co. Thomas L. Perkins 2(O) Davie County 1,280 *
Duke Power Co. Thomas L. Perkins 3(O) Davie County 1,280 *
OHIO
Cincinnati Gas & Electric Co. Wm. H. Zimmer 1(C) Moscow 810 6/82
Central Area Power Coordination Group(CAPCO) Perry 1(C) North Perry 1,205 5/84
Central Area Power Coordination Group(CAPCO) Perry 2(C) North Perry 1,205 5/88
Central Area Power Coordination Group(CAPCO)_Davis-Besse 1_Oak Harbor_890_11/77
OKLAHOMA
Public Service Co. of Oklahoma Black Fox 1(LWA) Inola 1,150 7/85
Public Service Co. of Oklahoma Black Fox 2(LWA) Inola 1,150 7/88
OREGON
Portland General Electric Co.__Trojan__________Rainier_________1,130_____5/76
Portland General Electric Co. Pebble Springs 1(O) Arlington 1,260 1990s
Portland General Electric Co. Pebble Springs 2(O) Arlington 1,260 1990s
PENNSYLVANIA
Department of Energy________Shippingport_______Shippingport_______60____12/57
Central Area Power Coordination Group(CAPCO)_Beaver Valley 1_Shippingport_833_10/76
Central Area Power Coordination Group(CAPCO) Beaver Valley 2(C) Shippingport 833 5/86
Metropolitan Edison Co._Three Mile Island 1-a__Londonderry Township_819__9/74
Metropolitan Edison Co._Three Mile Island 2-b__Londonderry Township_906_12/78
Pennsylvania Power & Light Co. Susquehanna 1(C) Berwick 1,050 5/82
Pennsylvania Power & Light Co. Susquehanna 2(C) Berwick 1,050 5/83
Philadelphia Electric Co.___Peach Bottom 2__Peach Bottom Township__1,065_7/74
Philadelphia Electric Co.___Peach Bottom 3__Peach Bottom Township__1,065_12/74
Philadelphia Electric Co. Limerick 1(C) Limerick Township 1,055 4/85
Philadelphia Electric Co. Limerick 2(C) Limerick Township 1,055 4/87
SOUTH CAROLINA
Carolina Power & Light Co.__H.B. Robinson 2____Hartsville________700_____3/71
Duke Power Co.______________Oconee 1___________Lake Keowee_______860_____7/73
Duke Power Co.______________Oconee 2___________Lake Keowee_______860_____9/74
Duke Power Co.______________Oconee 3___________Lake Keowee_______860____12/74
Duke Power Co. Catawba 1(C) York County 1,145 3/84
Duke Power Co. Catawba 2(C) York County 1,145 9/85
Duke Power Co. Cherokee 1(C) Cherokee County 1,280 1/90
Duke Power Co. Cherokee 2(C) Cherokee County 1,280 1/92
Duke Power Co. Cherokee 3(C) Cherokee County 1,280 *
South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. Virgil C. Summer 1(C) Parr 900 6/81
-a Shut down owing to NRC order pending re-start hearings.
-b Shut down since 3/28/79 accident which caused core damage.
{ Net Comm'l
State and Utility Plant Location M/We Operation}
TENNESSEE
Tennessee Valley Authority__Sequoyah 1_________Daisy___________1,148_____9/80-a
Tennessee Valley Authority Sequoyah 2(C) Daisy 1,148 7/82
Tennessee Valley Authority Watts Bar 1(C) Spring City 1,177 11/82
Tennessee Valley Authority Watts Bar 2(C) Spring City 1,177 8/83
Tennessee Valley Authority Hartsville A-1(C) Hartsville 1,233 7/88
Tennessee Valley Authority Hartsville A-2(C) Hartsville 1,233 4/89
Tennessee Valley Authority Hartsville B-1(C) Hartsville 1,233 *
Tennessee Valley Authority Hartsville B-2(C) Hartsville 1,233 *
Tennessee Valley Authority Phipps Bend 1(C) Surgoinsville 1,233 2/89
Tennessee Valley Authority Phipps Bend 2(C) Surgoinsville 1,233 *
Tennessee Valley Authority Clinch River Breeder Reactor Plant(O) Oak Ridge 350 9/88-b
TEXAS
Houston Lighting & Power Co. Allens Creek 1(O) Wallis 1,200 2/88
South Texas Project South Texas Project 1(C) Matagorda County 1,250 2/84
South Texas Project South Texas Project 2(C) Matagorda County 1,250 2/86
Texas Utilities Generating Co. Comanche Peak 1(C) Somervell County 1,150 0/82
Texas Utilities Generating Co. Comanche Peak 2(C) Somervell County 1,150 0/84
-a Received full-power operating license 9/16/80.
-b Subject to resolution of national policy debate.
{ Net Comm'l
State and Utility Plant Location M/We Operation}
VERMONT
Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp._Vermont Yankee_Vernon 514 11/72
VIRGINIA
Virginia Electric & Power Co._Surry 1__________Gravel Neck_______775____12/72
Virginia Electric & Power Co._Surry 2__________Gravel Neck_______775_____5/73
Virginia Electric & Power Co._North Anna 1_____Mineral___________850_____6/78
Virginia Electric & Power Co._North Anna 2_____Mineral___________850____12/80-c
Virginia Electric & Power Co. North Anna 3(C) Mineral 907 0/89
WASHINGTON
Puget Sound Power & Light Co. Skagit 1(O) Hanford 1,288 1/91
Puget Sound Power & Light Co. Skagit 2(O) Hanford 1,288 1/93
Department of Energy________Hanford--N_________Richland__________800_____9/66
Washington Public Power Supply System WPPSS 1(C) Richland 1,267 2/86
Washington Public Power Supply System WPPSS 2(C) Richland 1,093 9/83
Washington Public Power Supply System WPPSS 3(C) Satsop 1,240 9/86
Washington Public Power Supply System WPPSS 4(C) Richland 1,267 2/87
Washington Public Power Supply System WPPSS 5(C) Satsop 1,240 9/87
WISCONSIN
Dairyland Power Coop._______LaCrosse___________Genoa______________50____11/69
Wisconsin Electric Power Co.__Point Beach 1____Two Creeks________497____12/70
Wisconsin Electric Power Co.__Point Beach 2____Two Creeks________497____10/72
Wisconsin Public Service Corp._Kewaunee________Carlton Township__535_____6/74
-c Received full-power operating license 8/20/80 and went into commercial
operation 12/14/80.
_______________________________________________________________________________
OPERATING LICENSES ISSUED IN 1980
Net
Plant Location MWe Utility
North Anna 2-a Mineral, VA 850 Virginia Electric & Power Co.
Sequoyah 1-b Daisy, TN 1,148 Tennessee Valley Authority
Salem 2-c Salem, NJ 1,115 Public Service Electric & Gas Co.
Joseph M. Farley 2-c Houston County, AL 860 Alabama Power Co.
_____________________________
Total: 4 reactors = 3,973 MWe
-a Received full-power operating license and went into commercial operation.
-b Received full-power operating license only.
-c Received limited operating license to load fuel, reach criticality and do
power testing only.
_______________________________________________________________________________
REACTOR RETIRED IN 1980
Net Comm'l
Plant Location MWe Utility Operation
Indian Point 1 Buchanan, NY 265 Consolidated Edison Co. of New York 10/62
_______________________________________________________________________________
CANCELLATIONS IN 1980
Net Comm'l
Plant Location MWe Utility Operation
Davis-Besse 2(LWA) Oak Harbor, OH 906 Toledo Edison Co. 4/85
Davis-Besse 3(LWA) Oak Harbor, OH 906 Toledo Edison Co. 4/87
Erie 1(O) Berlin Heights, OH 1,260 Ohio Edison Co. 4/86
Erie 2(O) Berlin Heights, OH 1,260 Ohio Edison Co. 4/88
Forked River 1(C) Lacey Township, NJ 1,168 Jersey Control Power & Light Co. 5/86
Greenwood 2(O) St. Clair County, MI 1,264 Detroit Edison Co. 9/90
Greenwood 3(O) St. Clair County, MI 1,264 Detroit Edison Co. 9/92
Haven 1(O) Haven, WI 900 Wisconsin Electric Power Co. 6/89
Jamesport 1(C) Riverhead, NY 1,150 Long Island Lighting Co. 6/89
Jamesport 2(C) Riverhead, NY 1,150 Long Island Lighting Co. 6/91
Montague 1(O) Montague, MA 1,150 Northeast Nuclear Energy Co. *
Montague 2(O) Montague, MA 1,150 Northeast Nuclear Energy Co. *
New Haven 1(O) New Haven, NY 1,250 New York State Electric & Gas Corp. 5/93
New Haven 2(O) New Haven, NY 1,250 New York State Electric & Gas Corp. 5/94
North Anna 4(C) Mineral, VA 907 Virginia Electric & Power Co. 0/92
Sterling(C) Sterling, NY 1,150 Rochester Gas & Electric Corp. 5/88
________________________________
Total: 16 reactors = 18,085 MWe
Source: Atomic Industrial Forum, Inc., Washington, D.C.
* * * * * * *
Appendix D
Organizations
Committee of the Atomic Bomb Survivors in the U.S.
1109 Shell Gate Place
Alameda, CA 94501
Committee for Nuclear Responsibility
P.O. Box 11207
San Francisco, CA 92401
American Friends Service Committee/Rocky Flats Project
1660 Lafayette Street, Suite D
Denver, CO 80218
Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers
P.O. Box 2812
Denver, CO 80201
Rocky Flats Coalition
1315 Broadway, # 1
Boulder, CO 80302
Micronesia Support Committee
1212 University Avenue
Honolulu, HI 96826
National Association of Atomic Veterans
1109 Franklin Street
Burlington, IA 52601
Union of Concerned Scientists
1208 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02138
Nevada Test Site Radiation Victims Association
P.O. Box 18414-192
Las Vegas, NV 89114
American Indian Environmental Council
3812 Central S.E.
Albuquerque, NM 87106
Southwest Research and Information Center
P.O. Box 4524
Albuquerque, NM 87106
Focus on Micronesia Coalition
475 Riverside Drive, Room 616
New York, NY 10115
Fellowship of Reconciliation/Nuclear Weapons Facilities Project
Box 271
Nyack, NY 10960
Committee for U.S. Veterans of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
P.O. Box 14424
Portland, OR 97214
TMI Alert
315 Peiffer Street
Harrisburg, PA 17102
Citizens' Call
126 South 1400 West
Cedar City, UT 84720
Center for Renewable Resources
Room 1100
1028 Connecticut Ave., NW
Washington, D.C. 20036
Critical Mass Energy Project
P.O. Box 1538
Washington, D.C. 20013
Environmental Policy Center
317 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE
Washington, D.C. 20003
Health and Energy Learning Project
236 Massachusetts Avenue, NE, # 506
Washington, D.C. 20002
International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers
1300 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20036
Natural Resources Defense Council
1725 I Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20002
Nuclear Information & Resource Service
1536 16th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20036
SANE
514 C Street, NE
Washington, D.C. 20002
* * * * * * *
[part 18 of 18]
_______________________________________________________________________________
[The index has been included verbatim from the original book. Although
page numbers are not correct for this copy of the book, it was felt the
subjects noted here would be useful as reference. The original chapter
page numbers are listed below to facilitate cross-referencing --ratitor]
Acknowledgments ix
Notes 297
Introduction by Dr. Benjamin Spock x
1 The First Atomic Veterans 3
2 300,000 GIs Under the Mushroom Clouds 31
3 Bringing the Bombs Home 58
4 Test Fallout, Political Fallout 82
5 Continued Testing: Tragic Repetitions 102
6 The Use and Misuse of Medical X Rays 125
7 Nuclear Workers: Radiation on the Job 140
8 Bomb Production at Rocky Flats: Death Downwind 165
9 Uranium Milling and the Church Rock Disaster 177
10 Tritium in Tucson, Wastes Worldwide 190
11 The Battle of Shippingport 207
12 How Much Radiation? 223
13 Animals Died at Three Mile Island 237
14 People Died at Three Mile Island 246
15 Conclusion: Surviving the New Fire 264
Appendix A The Basics of Radiation and Health 270
Appendix B Summary of Atomic Bomb Tests 280
Appendix C Commercial Nuclear Power Reactors in the U.S. 282
Appendix D Organizations 295
Index 359
_______________________________________________________________________________
Index
A-bomb. {See} Nuclear weapons tests
Aiken (SC), 167, 196
Alabama, 229
Alaska, 210
Albany (NY), 73, 96, 108-10, 236, 249
Albuquerque (NM), 180
Aliquippa (PA), 219-21, 255
Alpha Radiation. {See} Radiation
Amarillo (TX), 83, 166
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 88,
95, 211
American Atomics Corporation, 153, 190-94, 261, 268
American Cancer Society, 132-33
American College of Radiology, 132, 136
American Medical Association (AMA), 137
American Physical Society, 48, 56
American Society of Radiologic Technologists, 128
Americium, 161
Amish, 223
Anaconda Company, 180, 183
Anderson, lack, 23, 226-27, 244
Animal Mutations. {See} Radiation
Antiballistic Missile System (ABM), 214
Argonne National Laboratory, 48
Arizona, 43, 62-66, 111-13, 118, 177-78, 180-83
birth defects in, 186
Center for Occupational Safety and Health, 193
fallout on, 72, 92
radioactive wastes in, 192-93
{Arizona Daily Star, The}, 191-93
Arkansas, 173, 227, 245, 255
{Arkansas Gazette, The}, 227-28
Arkansas Nuclear One. {See} Nuclear power plants
Arkansas Power and Light, 227 255, 261
Associated Press (AP), 16, 20, 27, 92, 111, 122, 227
Atlantic Ocean, 171, 195-96, 253
Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC), 88, 145-46
Atomic Energy Act, 80
Atomic Energy Commission. {See} United States Government
{Atomic Establishment, The,} 184
Atomic Industrial Forum, 112
Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, 185
{Atomic Tests in Nevada,} 105
"Atoms for Peace," 56, 71, 111, 207-08, 267-68
Australia, 3, 268
Babcock and Wilcox, 223
(Baltimore) {News-American, The,} 234-36, 248-40, 243
Barnwell Nuclear Center, 198
Barrett, Lake, 232
Battelle Laboratory, 143-44
{Beaver County Times, The}, 217
Beaver Valley (PA), 216-17, 222, 226
Beaver Valley. {See} Nuclear power plants
BEIR Committee. {See} National Academy of Sciences
Bell Laboratories, 56
Bennett, Herschel, 227-29, 245
Berkeley (CA), 48
Berkeley Radiation Laboratory, 48, 153
Berlin (FRG), 99, 107
Bertell, Rosalie, 133-34, 226, 265
Berwyn (IL), 10
Bethe, Hans, 56
Bikini Islands, 31-32, 37-47, 85-87, 99, 102-103, 260. {See also},
Nuclear weapons tests
Birth defects. {See} Radiation
Bismuth, 147
Black, Hugo, 209
Blumenson, Leslie, 132, 265
Bond, Victor, 252
Bonebrake, Richard W., 24-25, 30
Boston (MA), 25, 127, 138, 211
{Boston Globe, The,} 155-56
Boston Veterans' Hospital, 155
Boulder (CO), 154
Bradbury, Norris, 50, 84
Bradley, David, 31-32, 38-42
Brafford, Chris 187; Neil, 187
Brody, Jane, 251-53
Broken Arrows, 166
Brookhaven National Laboratories, 218, 252
Brooklyn (WI), 43
Broomfield (CO), 173
Bross, Irwin, 132, 134, 136, 156, 265
Broudy, Charles, 105; Pat, 105-106
Brower, Stephen, 75, 77-78
Brown's Ferry. {See} Nuclear power plants
Buffalo (NY), 132, 159, 226
{Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, The,} 53, 106, 110, 208, 212,
214
Bulloch, Kern, 76; McRae, 79
Burlington (IA), 35, 166
Bush, George, 267, 269
Cadmium, 177
Cain, Fran, 238, 242, 262
Caldicott, Helen, 225, 265
Caldwell, Glyn C., 33, 265
California, 3, 14, 21, 42, 46, 50, 73, 90-91, 105
Radiation and, 64, 66, 121, 128, 183
California Institute of Technology, 88, 95
California, University of, 48-49, 53, 81, 94
Camp Desert Rock, 67, 70, 90
Camp Mercury, 58
Canada, 14, 116-17, 159, 249, 268
Cancer. {See} Radiation
Canon City (CO), 186, 245
Canonsburg (PA) 188-90
Carbon-14, 56-57, 97, 210, 213, 279
Carlsbad (NM), 122
Carnegie-Mellon Institute, 218
Carter, Jimmy, 21, 136, 156, 159-60, 162, 198, 202, 254, 264
Calder Hall. {See} Nuclear power plants
Cedar City (UT), 59-60, 76, 79
Center for Disease Control, 33-34, 36, 156, 181, 186, 253
Center for Investigative Reporting, 103
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 102, 200-203, 267
Cesium-137, 9, 87, 114, 171, 195, 249, 266, 278
badges and, 36
escape from plants, 210
ocean dumping, 196
Pittsburgh residents and, 219
Chalk River (Canada), 159
{Charlotte Observer, The}, 13
Chicago (IL), 126, 151, 184, 203, 218
Chicago, University of, 48, 57
China, 217-18, 267 68
Christmas Island 104
Church Rock (NM), 177 80, 182-84, 190, 197, 261, 268
Clamshell Alliance, 228
Clapp, Delores, 12; Ralph, 11-14
Cleland, Max, 17-18, 21, 26
Cobalt-60, 190, 210, 272, 278
Cobb, John C., 156-57, 169, 175, 265
Colorado, 65, 122, 149, 162, 168, 182-3, 186, 234
birth defects in, 173, 186-88
fallout in, 72, 92-93
Colorado, University of, 92, 156, 169, 175
Colorado River, 118, 178, 183
Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), 36
Columbia River, 11, 196
Columbia University, 56, 152, 248, 264
Committee for Nuclear Information, 97-99
Committee for U.S Veterans of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 18
Commoner, Barry, 97
Commonwealth Edison, 151
{Congressional Record}, 215
Conley, Charles, 224, 236, 238, 241; Joseph, 239
Connecticut, 230
{Conqueror, The}, 80-81
Coppola, Anna, 20, 22; Harry, 14-15, 18-23, 25, 30, 36
Cornell University, 56, 185, 212
Critical mass, defined, 278
Critical Mass Energy Project, 203
Cuba, 107
Curie, 237, 277
Curie, Marie, 140, 277; Pierre, 140
Czechoslovakia, 140, 147 48
{Dark Circle}, 165, 173-75
Day, Sam, 208
Dean, Gordon, 69-70, 75
Decatur (AL), 229
Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA), 13, 16, 19, 23-24, 27-30, 35-37, 81,
104, 147
DeGroot, Morris, 218-221
Denmark, 166
Denver (CO), 10, 92, 109, 149, 160, 165, 232
Rocky Flats and, 162, 168, 172-73
{Denver Post, The,} 201
Detroit (MI), 208, 229
Detroit Edison, 209
Diablo Canyon. {See} Nuclear power plants
Dillon, Read and Company, 55
Dine (Navajo) Nation, 177
Dosimeter. {See} Radiation
Dow Chemical Co., 56, 160-62, 169, 172
Down's Syndrome. {See} Radiation
Douglas, William O., 209
Dresden. {See} Nuclear power plants
Drinker, Cecil, 152, 265
Duckwater Shoshones, 65
DuPont, 56
Duquesne Light, 208, 216-19, 222
Durango (CO), 183, 185, 261
Dyson, Freeman, 214, 265
Edison, Thomas, 127
Eisenbud, Merrill, 96, 100, 148-49, 150, 265
Eisenhower, Dwight, 62, 75, 84, 98-99, 103, 107
"Atoms for Peace" program, 71, 207
Einstein, Albert, 52, 269-70
Elugelab Island, 83
{Encyclopaedia Britannica}, 143, 279
Eniwetok, 49-50, 82-85, 99, 104. {See also}, Nuclear weapons tests
Enterprise (UT), 59, 65
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). {See} U.S. Government
Eskimos, 210
Espionage Act, 32
Europe, 150, 171, 269
{Face the Nation,} 95
Fallout, 3-122, 268. {See also}, Radiation
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 84, 157
Federal Republic of Germany (FRC), 181, 266
Federation of Atomic Scientists (FAS), 37, 47, 93, 110
Fermi. {See} Nuclear power plants
Fermi, Enrico, 52, 58
Fission, defined, 278
Fitzpatrick. {See} Nuclear power plants
Flagstaff (AZ), 193-94
Florida, 20-22, 44-45, 49, 71, 196, 229
Ford Administration, 202
Ford, Betty, 132
{Foreign Policy Bulletin, The}, 96
Fort Bragg (NC), 70
Fort Lauderdale (FL), 19
France, 49, 107, 148
Franck Report, 5-6
Fredonia (AZ), 62-65, 111, 113
Freedom of Information Act, 202
Fusion, defined, 278
Gallup (AZ), 177, 180
Gamma Ray. {See} Radiation
Geiger Counter. {See} Radiation
General Accounting Office (GAO), 25, 158, 184, 194, 230, 265
General Advisory Committee, 52, 100
General Dynamics Corporation, 155
General Electric, 56, 79, 190
General Public Utilities (GPU), 223
Genetic defects. {See} Radiation
Geneva (Switzerland), 94, 171
George Washington University, 67
Georgia, 152-53, 166, 196
Gerusky, Thomas, 219, 222, 234-36, 248
Getty Oil, 198
Gilinsky, Victor, 178, 184-85, 233
Glendale (AZ), 63
Gofman, John W., 111, 145, 153, 209-13, 218, 265
on radiation, 216-17, 229, 273, 278
Goodman, Leo, 209
Goodyear Corporation, 158
Grand Junction (CO), 187-89
Great Britain. {See} United Kingdom
Greenland, 166
Guadalcanal, 21-23
Guam, 23
Gulf of Mexico, 195
Haag, Kristen, 165, 171, 175; Rex, 162, 165, 175-76, 190
half-life, definition of, 270
Hammarskjold, Dag, 98
Hammel, Laura T., 239-41
Hanford Nuclear Reservation (WA), 78-79, 141-44, 196-97, 200, 203,
218, 261
Harrisburg (PA), 223, 232, 235-36, 247-249, 251, 254
fetal and infant mortality in, 252-59
{Harrowsmith} magazine, 249, 261
Harvard University, 52, 109, 130, 149, 152
Medical School, 128, 246
Hawaii, 31, 46, 49, 83, 86, 99, 165
Hayward, Susan, 81
H-Bomb. {See} Nuclear weapons tests
Health Insurance Plan of New York, 132
{Health Physics} magazine, 141-43
Health Physics Society, 109-160
Helms, Clifford, 13
Hendrie, Joseph, 236, 247, 249, 254
Hiroshima, 3-7, 54, 103, 142, 209, 212, 259, 261, 266
ABCC study and, 145-47
radiation and, 95, 276
size of bomb, 59, 71, 83, 103
U.S veterans and, 3-33
{Hiroshima and Nagasaki Physical, Medical, and Social Effects of
Atomic Bombing}, 46
Hodgkin's Disease. {See} Radiation
Hollywood (CA), 80-81
Hong Kong, 152
Honolulu (HI), 103
Hughes, Howard, 80
Human Resources Research Office, 67
Humboldt. {See} Nuclear power plants
Hyaline membrane disease. {See} Radiation
Hypothyroidism. {See} Radiation
Idaho, 54, 73, 108, 118
Idaho Nuclear Engineering Laboratory (INEL), 167-68, 196, 200, 203
{Idaho Statesman, The}, 168
Illinois 3, 21, 24-26, 45, 72, 198
Radium Dial Co. and, 152-53
Indian Health Service, 180, 186
Indian Point. {See} Nuclear power plants
Indiana, 24, 72
Infant mortality. {See} Radiation
Iodine, 74, 100, 167, 209-10, 249, 278
TMI and, 231-36
prenatal development and, 110, 213, 217, 247
weapons tests and, 76, 89, 101, 114-17, 171
Ionizing radiation. {See} Radiation
Iowa, 35, 166
Iraq, 196, 267
Isotopes, 110, 183, 196; defined, 237
Israel, 196, 267
Jacobs, Paul, 112
Japan, 3, 23-26, 29, 34, 38, 44, 57, 195, 212
ABCC Study and, 145
fallout and, 96
fishing industry and, 87-88
protests and, 98, 269
Jefferson County (CO), 174-75, 182
Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, Church of (Mormon), 60-64,
215
Johns Hopkins University, 127, 133
Johnson, Carl, 174-76, 182, 234, 265
Johnson, Lyndon, 208
Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE). {See} U. S. Congress
{Journal of the American Medical Association} (JAMA), 33, 134
Kansas, 49, 72
Karkenan, Dan, 161; Miriam, 161
Kellex Corporation, 56
Kelly, Orville, 34-36; Wanda, 34-36
Kemeny Commission, 160, 181, 232-233, 235, 248, 259, 264
Kennedy, Edward M., 65, 118, 151
Kennedy, John F., 107, 208
Kentucky, 157-58, 197
Kerr-McGee Corporation, 180, 183
Knapp, Harold, 77, 100, 209, 265
Knapp Report, 77, 100-101
Kneale, George, 141-43, 265
Korea, 43, 58, 73
Krumback, Florence, 162-5; Leroy, 162-5
Krypton gas, 167, 260, 262
Kyshtym (USSR), 200, 203, 261, 268
Lake Mead (AZ), 178, 183-84
Lake Ontario Ordnance Works, 198-99
Lapp, Ralph, 9, 88, 96, 100
Lasky, Alvin, 24-25, 30
Las Vegas (NV), 58, 64, 67, 73, 91-92, 118, 178, 183
{Las Vegas Review Journal The}, 91-92
Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, 52, 84, 146, 209-212, 214
Lead, 147, 177-78
Lebanon (OR), 10
Lee, Jane, 223-24, 237-38, 241, 260-62
Leukemia. {See} Radiation
Lewis, E. B., 95-96, 109, 127, 274
Lewiston (NY), 199-200, 203
Libby, Willard F., 89-90, 93-97, 104
Lifton, Robert Jay, 6
Lilienthal, David, 57
Limited Test Ban Treaty, 112
Little Rock (AK), 227
Liverman, James, 144
London (UK), 170
Los Alamos (NM), 6, 48, 141
Los Alamos County (NM), 154
Los Alamos Laboratory, 184, 276
Operation Sandstone and, 50, 56, 58, 74
studies and, 78, 84, 153-54
Los Angeles (CA), 64, 73, 107, 178, 184, 235
{Los Angeles Times, The,} 201, 267
{Los Angeles Herald Examiner, The,} 93, 121
Love Canal (NY), 199-200
Low-level radiation. {See} Radiation
Lloyd, David, 49, Scotty, 49
Luminous Processes Co., 152-53
Lymphoma. {See} Radiation
Mackelprang, Gayneld, 62-63, 113; Rose, 62-63, 113
MacLeod, Gordon, 246-48, 251-55, 264-65
MacMahon, Brian, 109, 130, 142
Maine, 118, 236
Mancuso, Thomas, 141-47, 156, 159, 265
Manhattan Project, 5-6, 47, 109-10, 153-55, 199
Mariana Islands, 3
Martell, Edward, 36, 115, 154, 172, 265
Maryland, 37, 54, 133, 138, 195, 216, 218, 253
Marshall Islands, 75, 99, 207, 252. {See also} Nuclear weapons
tests
Massachusetts, 72
Matayoshi, Almira, 86
Matheson, Scott M., 121
Maughan, Alan, 186; Dale, 186
Mechanicsburg (PA), 237, 244
Medina Weapons Plant (TX), 166
Mediterranean, 166
Medvedev, Zhores, 200-201, 265
Mennonites, 223
Mesa (AZ), 43, 187
Metropolitan Edison Company, 223, 231, 234-35, 247 264
citizen opposition to, 237, 254, 260-61
Miami (FL), 184, 203
Michigan, 19, 24, 194, 215, 267
Michigan, University of, 159-60
Middletown (PA), 224, 233, 238, 259, 261-62
Milham, Samuel, 142-43
Military Liaison Committee, 47-48, 53, 68
Millirems, 237, 249; defined, 277
Millstone. {See} Nuclear power plants
Milk. {See} Radiation
Milliroentgens, 72-73, 92
defined, 277
Minnesota, 43, 46, 118, 133
Miscarriage. {See} Radiation
Mississippi, 116, 122, 188, 249
Missouri, 72, 97, 99-100
Mixon, Lloyd, 173-76, 186, 190, 225, 228, 245
Monsanto Chemical Co., 56
Montana, 118, 137
Moorehead, Agnes, 81
Morgan, Karl Z, 93, 97, 128-30, 162, 220-21, 232
Mormons. {See} Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Church of
Multiple myeloma. {See} Radiation
Myelofibrosis. {See} Radiation
Nagasaki, 3-33, 169, 203, 261, 266, 276
production of bomb, 142, 153, 207
studies of, 145-47, 209
Najarian, Thomas, 25, 155-56, 265
{Nation} magazine, {The}, 54, 255
National Academy of Sciences, 127, 275
Advisory Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing
Radiation (BEIR), 146, 219, 275
National Association of Atomic Veterans (NAAV), 34-37
National Broadcasting Company (NBC), 56-57, 91
National Cancer Institute, 30, 132-34, 138, 141, 147
National Center for Atmospheric Research, 36, 154, 172
National Council on Radiation Protection (NCRP), 97, 148
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH),
144, 156
Native Americans, 65-66, 81, 148, 177, 179, 182
Nebraska, 118, 126
Nevada Test Site, 58-59, 67, 113, 116-18, 215, 245
fallout and, 72-73, 75, 89, 100-101, 116
health effects, 59, 64-65, 68, 104, 120
public and, 62, 66, 80-81, 90, 111
{New England Journal of Medicine, The}, 25, 65, 127
New Hampshire, 155, 173, 225, 228
New Jersey, 112, 151, 184
New Mexico, 48, 50, 58, 89, 161, 179, 181
health studies, 141, 154, 181
bomb tests in, 5, 84, 89-90, 122, 178
uranium mining in, 177-84, 186
{New Scientist, The,} 200, 202
{Newsweek} magazine, 16, 38, 42, 54
New York (state), 21, 24, 56, 167, 226, 245, 267
cancer rates in, 100, 109
fallout in, 72-73, 96s, 109
infant mortality in, 110, 215, 218
radiation doses and, 108, 126, 133-35, 159, 173, 249
wastes and, 72-73, 96, 109
New York, State University of, 100, 197
New York City (NY), 57, 99, 133, 184, 218, 229, 241
fallout and, 279
wastes and, 194
{New York Times, The,} 47, 54, 106, 214, 250-51
radiation reports in, 116, 199, 260
TMI and, 239, 242, 253
{New York Times} News Service, 87
New York Public Interest Group (NYPIRG), 130, 135
New York University, 100, 259
New Zealand, 3
Nikoloff, John, 235, 238-40, 243 44
Nine Mile Point. {See} Nuclear power plants
Nixon, Richard M., 149, 211, 246
Noble gases; defined, 249
North Carolina, 13, 21, 58, 70, 166
North Dakota, 97
Nuclear Fuel Services (NFS), 159, 198
Nuclear power plants, 12, 134, 266
Arkansas Nuclear One, 228-29
Beaver Valley (PA), 160
Browns Ferry (AL), 229-30
Calder Hall (UK), 170
Diablo Canyon (CA), 254, 267, 268
Dresden (IL), 54, 218, 261
Fermi I (MI), 208, 229-30, 267
Fitzpatrick (NY), 226, 229, 261
Humboldt (CA), 218, 261, 267
Indian Point (NY), 218, 261, 267
Millstone (CT), 230, 261
Nine Mile Point (NY), 226-28, 249, 261
Peach Bottom (PA), 253
Seabrook (NH), 228
Shippingport (PA), 156, 159-60, 207-23, 244, 250, 255, 261
contamination around, 226-27
statistical deception and, 221.
{See also} Shapp Report
Three Mile Island (PA), 177, 179, 190, 214, 246-56, 261, 267-68
Animals and, 64, 222-25, 239-43
infant mortality and, 255-63
licensing of, 184
public reaction to, 236-37
radiation and, 74, 160, 169, 171, 231-32, 278
Vermont Yankee, 225-28, 244-45, 261-62
Waltz Mills (PA), 219
Nuclear Utilities Services (NUS), 216-26
Nuclear weapons tests, 3-122, 134, 190, 194, 269, 274
Bikini Islands
Able, 31-33, 39, 42, 45-46
Baker, 2, 39-45, 67, 102
Operation Castle, 84-87
Operation Crossroads, 31, 37-38, 40-49, 104
Hiroshima, 6. {See also} Hiroshima
Marshall Islands
Bravo, 84-88
George, 82
Mike, 83-84
Oak, 104
Operation Greenhouse, 82-83
Operation Sandstone, 49-50
Yoke, 50
Nagasaki, 6. {See also} Nagasaki
Nevada Test Site
Baker, 11, 67
Baneberry, 117-18, 120
Bee, 90
Buster Jangle, 67
Climax, 71
Easy, 68
Exercise Desert Rock, 67
Harry ("Dirty Harry"), 73-74
Hood, 105-106
Operation Knothole, 70-72
Operation Plumbbob, 105
Operation Ranger, 67
Operation Teapot, 89-90
Operation Tumbler-Snapper, 69-70
Priscilla, 106
Schooner, 116
Sedan, 114-15
Simon, 72-73, 96, 108
Smoky, 33, 36
Turk, 90
New Mexico (Gnome), 122
Project Plowshare, 115-16, 210
Underwater
Swordfish, 104
Wigwam, 103-1 04
Oak Ridge (TN), 141, 157, 162
Oak Ridge Associated University, 144
Oak Ridge Health Physics Lab., 93
Oak Ridge National Lab., 146, 183, 202, 225
Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 158
Ohio, 72, 131, 141, 157
Ohio River, 217, 219, 227
Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union, 158
Okajima, Shungo, 29
Okinawa (Japan), 3, 11
Oklahoma, 85
Ontario (Canada), 249
Oppenheimer, Robert, 49, 51-52, 84, 93, 153
Oregon, 44, 118, 228
Oxford University (UK), 25, 96, 129
Pacific Ocean, 3, 82, 84, 89, 212
dump sites in, 195
nuclear tests in, 31, 58, 67, 103-104, 107, 207, 261
Paducah (KY), 157-58, 261
Palladino, Nunzio, 242, 268
Pantex Weapons Plant (TX), 166
Pauling, Linus, 94-98, 209, 213, 265
Peach Bottom. {See} Nuclear power plants
Pearl Harbor (HI), 3, 44, 118
Pendleton, Robert, 81, 108, 114-17, 265
Pennsylvania, 65, 72, 136, 210, 223, 232, 241, 246
Nuclear reactors in. {See} Nuclear power plants
Uranium in, 178, 184, 188
Pennsylvania, Government of
Department of Agriculture, 235, 238-43
Department of Energy, 235-36, 238-42
Department of Epidemiological Research, 219, 250
Department of Health, 246, 251-59, 264
Department of Radiation Protection, 231
Department of Radiological Health, 219
Medical College, 136
Public Utilities Commission, 237
State College, 184
State College of Engineering, 242
State University, 126, 184, 235
Pensacola (FL), 71
Philadelphia (PA), 139, 223
Philadelphia Electric Co., 235
Philippines, 44, 49
Piketon (OH), 157-58, 261
Pittsburgh (PA), 10, 188, 197, 208, 212, 218
strontium in, 110, 137, 219
Pittsburgh, University of, 141, 144, 189, 212, 251, 253
Medical School, 108
School of Public Health, 246
{Pittsburgh Press, The}, 188
Plutonium, 79, 111, 181, 194, 196-197
airborne, 165, 172
bombs, 6, 9, 31, 41, 166
concentration of, 29, 175, 266
defined, 271
exposure to, 36, 119, 153-54, 160-62, 176
half-life, 171, 196
health effects, 12, 22, 271
ocean dumping, 196
at Rocky Flats, 168-70, 173
wastes, 194, 197, 203
Polonium, 147, 177
Polycythemia vera, 10
Portland (OR), 7, 9-11
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, 155-57, 261
Potassium-40, 279
Potassium iodide, 247
Potomac River, 69
Powell, Dick, 81; Ellen 81
Princeton University, 106, 214
Provo (UT), 115
Public Health Service, 114, 117, 136, 149-50,
Quigley, Bernice, 8, 11; Linda, 8; Lyman, 3, 7-9, 11-13,
27-28; Ron, 8
Radford, Edward, 146, 219, 265
Radiation
animal mutations and, 198, 223-27, 237-40, 243-44
food chain and, 40, 78, 227-28
human diseases and
analyzed, 270-79
aplastic anemia, 127
bladder cancer, 154
bone cancer, 14, 26 133, 152
breast cancer, 131-33, 152-54, 158
cancer of the colon, 152, 154, 158, 162
Down's Syndrome, 131, 187, 261
"Factor VIII," 12
genetic defects, 45-46, 60-61, 70, 94, 97, 134, 230, 274-75
Hodgkin's Disease, 7, 25-26, 238
hyaline membrane disease, 213
hypothyroidism, 252-54
infant mortality, 212-15, 218-20, 249-68
leukemia, 96, 104, 109, 133-34, 155, 217
exposure levels and, 211
immune systems and, 274
Nagasaki and, 25-26
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and, 155-56
radiologists and, 127
Rocky Flats and, 65, 175
Shippingport and, 160, 221
Sternglass and, 219
Three Mile Island and, 249
thorium and, 181
uranium and, 185-86
weapons tests and, 36, 60, 63, 75, 86, 120
veterans and, 7, 33, 37
X rays and, 130
lung cancer, 133, 136, 147-51, 156-58
lymphoma, 33, 59, 106, 175
miscarriages, 46, 86, 130
multiplemyeloma, 127, 142, 152, 160, 175
veterans and, 7, 14, 19-25, 30
myelofibrosis, 7, 25-26
necrosis of the jaw, 151-52
oat-cell carcinoma, 25
pancreatic cancer, 154
prostate cancer, 158
skin cancer, 138
stomach cancer, 154
rectal cancer, 154
rheumatism, 188
thyroid cancer, 133
tuberculosis, 44, 188
measurement of, 277-78
dosimeters, 36, 41, 45-46, 71, 90, 159-60, 234
film badge, 170
Geiger counter, 60, 66, 76, 93, 119, 151 153, 236
bomb tests and, 39, 44-45, 70-72, 87
milk and, 74, 97, 100-101, 117, 268
poisoning, symptoms of, 22, 41, 49, 59-64, 69-74, 81, 83,
202, 213
types of, 270-79
alpha, 29, 36, 77, 93, 148, 152, 157, 234, 271
background, 279
beta, 36, 77-78, 93, 157, 233-34, 271
cosmic, 279
gamma, 92, 152, 157, 272-74
measurement of, 159, 210, 233-34, 277
ionizing, 25 143, 270, 275
neutron, 147, 210
low-level, 36, 95, 133-34, 147, 151
X ray, 109, 212, 266-72, 277
dose comparisons, 17-18, 27, 77, 79, 89, 93
genetic damage and, 94-96, 108, 130, 274
medical use of, 125-62, 279
workers and, 140-62, 268
veterans and, 4, 9, 13-14, 16, 23, 30
Radioisotopes, 9
defined, 270
Radionuclides, defined, 270
Radium, 40, 177-78, 180-82, 196, 222, 226,
deepwater tests and, 103
rivers and, 183
sediment samples of, 184
treatment with, 137
watch-dial painters and, 151-53
Radium Dial Co., 152
Radon daughters, 147-48, 185, 271
Radon gas, 137, 147-50, 184, 271
Ralph, Harold, 14-15, 22, 25, 30; Mike, 15; Virginia, 14-16, 18,
21-22, 27
Rasmussen Report, 230
Reagan, Ronald, 122, 136, 194-95, 264, 269
Reagan Administration, 113, 230, 254, 265, 267
Reilly, Margaret, 219, 231, 234-36
Rem (radiation equivalent man), defined, 277
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 72, 219
Resnikoff, Marvin, 159, 197-99, 265
Rhode Island, 26
Richmond (VA), 70
Rickover, Hyman, 155-56, 208
Rimland, Bernard, 215, 265
Rio Puerco (NM), 177-78, 180-82
Rochester (NY), 249
Rockefeller, Happy, 132
Rockville (MD), 216
Rockwell International, 160-61
Rocky Flats (CO) Nuclear Weapons Facility, 65, 160-62, 165, 175-76,
231-32, 279
accidents and, 168-72, 190, 200-201, 234, 261-62, 268
animal mutations and, 174, 186, 225, 228, 245
human diseases and, 160-62, 165-76
Rocky Mountains, 168-70
Roentgen, Wilhelm, 125-26, 129
Rongelap Atoll, 85-87
Rongerik Atoll, 87
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 122
Roswell Park Memorial Cancer Research Institute (Buffalo), 132, 226
Russellville (AK), 227
Saint George (UT), 81, 89, 100, 111-13, 260
cancer and, 86
Nevada fallout and, 61-65, 73-74, 86
{Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, The}, 112
Saint Paul (MN), 46
Sakharov, Andrei, 213, 265
Salt Lake City (UT), 80, 107, 114, 149
San Antonio (TX), 166
San Diego (CA), 103
San Francisco (CA), 32, 85, 195, 210
Savannah Beach (GA), 166
Savannah River (SC), 141, 167, 196, 200-03
Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), 215
Schroeder, Patricia, 15-17, 25-26, 122
Schweitzer, Albert, 97
{Science} magazine, 95-96, 108-110, 115, 126, 147, 236
Tamplin, article by, 214
{Science Digest}, 102, 115
{Science News Letter}, 38, 40
Scott, Helena, 46; Thomas, 46
Seabrook. {See} Nuclear power plants
Seattle (WA), 194, 203
Selenium, 177
Shapp, Milton, 219, 231
Shapp Commission, 219-22, 229, 231, 247, 265
Shippingport. {See} Nuclear power plants
Shiprock (NM), 186-87, 261
{60 Minutes,} 36-37
Snake River (ID) Aquifer, 167, 196
Sodium-24, 153, 177
Sohio, 180
South Carolina, 141, 166-67, 194-98
South Dakota, 187
Southern Piutes, 65
Spain, 166
Standard Chemical Company, 188
Standard Oil Development Co., 56
Sternglass Ernest, 108-10, 117-18, 171, 212-14, 218-19, 230,
247-55, 265
Stevenson, Adlai, 95
Stewart, Alice, 95-96, 108-109, 129-30, 134, 141-43, 146, 162,
265, 273
Strauss, Lewis, 53, 56, 84, 88-90, 94-95, 105, 108
Strontium, 9, 36, 65, 86-89, 95-99, 114, 171, 196, 210, 216, 219,
230, 249, 266
Health effects explained, 271
Structural Ironworkers Union, 118
Susquehanna Corporation, 188
Susquehanna River, 223, 247, 260-62
Switzerland, 152
Syracuse (NY), 249
Tailings (uranium), 178, 187, 197
Tampa (FL), 44, 49
{Tampa Tribune, The,} 22
Tamplin, Arthur, 172, 209-11, 213, 216-18, 229, 265, 273
Teledyne Inc., 235
Teledyne Isotopes, 235
Teller, Edward, 50-53, 58, 80-84, 95, 97, 106, 108, 110, 232
Tennessee, 17 141, 146-47, 157
Tennessee Valley Authority, 17, 208, 229
Texas, 83, 166, 173
Theory of Relativity, 270
Thomas, Irma, 61, 113
Thorium, 177-78, 180, 183, 196
Thornburgh, Richard, 231, 241, 246-48
Three Mile Island. {See} Nuclear power plants
{Time} magazine, 38, 51
Tinian, 3
Tokuhata, George, 219-21, 250-56, 265
Tokyo (Japan), 6, 54, 146
Toledo (OH), 10
Tonawanda (NY), 199-200
Tonopah (NV), 65, 111
Tonopah Bombing and Gunnery Range, 58
Topeka (KS), 49
Transuranic wastes, 197
Trinity (NM), 178
{Tri-State Leukemia Study,} 133-34
Tritium, 153, 167, 190-207, 210, 270, 274
Troy (NY), 72-73, 96, 108-10, 236
Truman, Harry, 5-6, 20, 47-56, 67, 105
Tuberculosis. {See} Radiation
Tucson (AZ), 153, 190-94
Udall, Morris 179-82
Union Carbide Co., 56, 157
USSR, 84, 98-99, 200-202, 213-14, 267-68
tests and, 53, 56, 96, 107
United Auto Workers, 208-209, 229
United Kingdom (UK), 98, 101, 107, 129, 141, 143, 158, 170-71, 268
Atomic Energy Authority, 96, 171, 200
scientists in, 25, 49, 147
United Nations (UN), 49, 86, 94-98, 171, 207
United Nuclear Co. (UNC), 178-82
United Press International (UPI), 29, 246, 252
United States, 2, 6, 11-12, 15-17, 20, 23-24, 28
censorship in, 134
electricity and, 229, 241
evacuation and, 87
fallout and, 112, 116
nuclear wastes and, 166, 199, 268
off-site venting and, 117-18, 120
radiation and, 99, 108, 115, 141, 172, 203, 279
test subjects and, 111
veterans and, 3-102
United States, Government of
Air Force, 36, 51, 75, 116, 118
veterans and, 49-50, 69, 83
Army, 4, 7, 24, 31, 50-51, 70
Army Corps of Engineers, 179
Army Reserve, 174
Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC), 145-47
Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), 47, 51-54, 57, 62, 68, 71, 78,
86, 99, 116, 121, 141-43, 166, 173, 208-10
animals and, 65, 78-79
Division of Biology and Medicine, 75, 80, 89, 96, 100, 105,
144
Division of Military Application, 118
Earth Sciences Branch, 217
fallout and, 75, 77, 88, 92, 94-95, 105, 110, 248
Fallout Studies Branch, 100
General Advisory Committee, 109
Gofman Study and, 211
H-bombs and, 51-54
Health and Safety Laboratory, 218
Knapp Report and, 101
Mancuso Report and, 265
Martell and, 36
milk confiscation and, 74, 97
mine tailings and, 187-88
Office of Raw Materials Operations, 148
ocean dumping and, 172, 195
psychological effects of bomb and, 69
Public Health Service and, 80
Rocky Flats and, 169, 171, 174
Sternglass and, 212-2
Truman and, 56
uranium mining and, 148-50
WASH-1520, 203
weapons production and, 186
weapons tests and, 58, 66, 73-74, 89, 90- 93, 102-104, 119,
231, 268
Bureau of Animal Industry, 78
Bureau of Fish and Wildlife, 235
Bureau of Radiation Safety, 252
Bureau of Radiological Health (BRH), 129, 131, 192
Bureau of Vital Statistics, 118, 249-50
Coast Guard, 99
Congress, 17, 54-55, 108, 130, 144, 149-50
ABM and, 214
Armed Services Committee, 15
FAS and, 47
Hanford and, 203
House, 67, 76-77, 98, 116, 128, 264
Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE), 48, 53, 89, 96, 98,
100, 108, 150
nuclear wastes and, 194, 196
radiation and, 34, 129
Nuclear Safety and Oversight Committee, 264
Senate, 196
Tamplin and, 211
Department of Agriculture, 64, 78, 222-25, 236, 239-43, 253
Department of Defense, 8, 12-13, 23-25, 34-37, 48-53, 67-70, 99
Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA), 28, 81
fallout and, 18, 74
Hiroshima and, 18, 21, 28
Department of Energy (DOE), 41, 111, 158, 168, 233, 264
nuclear waste and, 188, 195-96, 199
Rocky Flats and, 172, 174-75
subsidies of, 208
test sites, 87, 113, 117, 120-21
Department of Interior, 199
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), 246
Department of Health Services, 76
Department of Justice, 62, 66, 121, 194
Department of State, 55
Department of Transportation, 40-41, 194
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 1, 121, 141, 159, 180,
192, 230, 236
Nuclear wastes and, 183, 187, 195
TMI and, 242-44
Federal Commission on Medical Malpractice, 135, 137
Federal Radiation Council, 99, 128, 212
Federal Water Pollution Control Administration, 183
General Accounting Office (GAO), 230, 265
Interagency Radiation Research Committee, 29, 65
Joint Chiefs of Staff, 53
Navy, 33, 51, 155-57, 212, 215
Bikini tests and, 31 40, 42-46, 50, 85-86, 104
Nagasaki and, 24, 26-27
Seabees, 7, 13, 19, 21, 40
U.S.S. {Coucal}, 44
U.S.S. {Dawson}, 46
U.S.S. {Haven}, 31-32
U.S.S. {Hughes}, 43
U.S.S. {Moctobi}, 104
U.S.S. {Nevada}, 44
U.S.S. {Ottawa}, 45
U.S.S. {Pensacola}, 42
U.S.S. {Phoenix}, 99
U.S.S. {Quartz}, 43
U.S.S. {Salt Lake City}, 45
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), 77, 152-53, 159-60, 167,
231-34, 242-44, 260, 262
nuclear plants and, 160, 229, 231-36, 254, 264
nuclear wastes and, 194-95, 228, 230
radiation and, 101, 247-48, 266
Public Health Service (PHS), 63, 65, 72, 78, 114, 149-50
Supreme Court, 209, 229
Surgeon General, 107
{United States News, The,} 38, 87
{U.S. News & World Report,} 56, 93
U.S Radium Corporation, 151-52, 261
Uranium, 6, 110-11, 167, 175-77, 278
airborne, 172
Czechoslovakia, and, 140, 147
fuel pellets, 170
half-life, 270
Workers, and, 147-151, 153-54, 157-60
Wastes, 178, 180, 188, 194, 197
Utah, 58, 86, 111, 121, 183, 215, 260-62
animals in, 75-79
disease in, 60-64, 66, 81, 151, 185
fallout and, 59-62, 72, 89-92, 114-17, 209
iodine and, 100, 108, 115, 117
University of, 65, 81, 108, 114-15
Utirik Island, 86
Vanadium, 177
Vermont, 72, 173
{Vermonter, The}, 226
Vermont Yankee. {See} Nuclear power plants
Veterans Administration (VA), 16, 19
benefits and, 12, 43-45, 70, 82, 106
claims and, 9, 24-26, 44, 68, 104, 154
compensation and pension service, 21
hospitals, 11, 22, 70, 138, 155
protests against, 11-14, 21-22, 33-35
Virginia, 178
Voeltz, George, 154-55
Waltz Mills. {See} Nuclear power plants
Washington (State), 110, 117-18, 141-42
University of, 97
Washington (DC), 69, 80, 93, 148, 155, 184, 249
testimony in, 36, 50, 60, 83, 130, 138, 154, 209
protests in, 14-17, 19-22, 241
{Washington Post, The,} 28, 94, 116, 253
Wayne, John, 81; Michael, 81
Weber, Robert, 237, 241, 243 44
Weber, Nancy, 226, 229, 245
West Palm Beach (FL), 19-20
West Valley (NY), 159, 197-99, 203, 218, 245, 261
West Virginia, 55
Westinghouse, 56, 190, 208, 212
Weyerhouser Co., 14
White House, 13, 16, 21-23, 51, 53, 65, 114, 207
Windscale (UK), 101, 170-71, 200-201, 231, 261, 268
Winterer, Jorge, 180 81, 265
Wisconsin, 43
World War II, 11, 14, 43, 51, 56-57, 138, 192, 202, 212
Wyoming, 183
X ray. {See} Radiation
Xenon, 121, 167, 278
[End of Wasserman's Killing Our Own]
