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Nuclear testing on the Atolls

Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2014 3:39 pm
by SoulBiter
news.msn.com/world/islanders-afraid-to-go-home-60-years-after-bikini-atoll-h-bomb

The US displaced an entire culture and population and broke a trust with those same peoples. That is a trust that can never be rebuilt. Its an interesting article. For me its especially interesting because my father was there. I remember him telling me that when they set off the largest bomb, they had all been put in bunkers with goggles that were so dark that you couldn't see almost anything through them even in daylight. When that bomb went off, he said, the light was so intense that when he held his arm up into the light, you could see your bones through your arm/hand in an almost mimicry of an X-ray.

Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2014 5:14 pm
by Hashi Lebwohl
On the one hand the scientists of the day, despite their education and their technical knowledge, really didn't fully understand what it was they were dealing with. It is a shame they couldn't have found some uninhabited island upon which to conduct their tests but I wasn't part of the advisory committee. On the other hand, had any of the scientists in charge said "I cannot, in good conscience, continue with these tests" then he would have been quickly replaced by someone else who would have been more compliant. Even Einstein, who enjoyed special treatment and extra privileges from the Federal Government, was ignored when he penned that letter urging tests with atomic/nuclear bombs to stop.

We didn't have as much uninhabited land as the Soviets did, who were able to do all their testing out in Siberia, with the exception of the Tsar, which was detonated on a large island far to the north above the Arctic circle.

Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2014 4:40 am
by Avatar
Let's not forget the Aleutian islands where the US also tested nukes, including their largest ever underground test, pretty much ignoring the native population. (Who they'd already interned during WWII.)

--A