The Dragon’s Tail: Radiation Safety in the Manhattan Project, 1942–1946 by Barton C. Hacker

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 133 Japan in 1965-66, it appeared in English inJapan Quarterly in 1967— 68, in a London edition in 1971, and finally in a Bantam paperback in 1985.) Brians has placed us in his debt with this thoughtful and exhaustive examination of one specific facet of the literary treatment of the nu­ clear theme. The larger question—how nuclear awareness has influ­ enced the broader currents of post-Hiroshima literary expression— still remains to be explored. Paul Boyer Dr. Boyer, Merle Curti Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin and author of By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn ofthe Atomic Age (Pantheon, 1985), is working on a study of nuclear war in the work of apocalyptic religious writers of the post-Hiroshima period. The Dragon’s Tail: Radiation Safety in the Manhattan Project, 1942—1946. By Barton C. Hacker. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Pp. x + 258; notes, appendix, bibliography, index. $25.00. Perhaps no technological development has had a greater impact on mankind than the control of nuclear fission and its channeling into an atomic bomb. So fully does nuclear reality pervade our conscious­ ness that some would argue that the bomb has become a category of being, like space and time, which according to Kant are built into the very structure of our minds, giving meaning to all our perceptions. Such is the theme of numerous recent books, appearing in the wake of the fortieth anniversary of the United States’ detonation of the first atomic bomb, which revisit the Manhattan Project and trace its sub­ sequent effect on American life and politics. Barton Hacker’s The Dragon’s Tail is among this group. Hacker’s unique contribution is his insider’s look at one of the most contro­ versial aspects of atomic development—radiation safety in weapons testing. His heavily researched and well-written description of the origins of radiation safety standards and practices during the Man­ hattan Project years may be received with a certain skepticism, how­ ever, since the work was conceived, designed, funded, and finally approved by the Department of Energy, a successor of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), which for many has come to represent the villain in the protracted conflict between concern for public health and safety and the imperatives of nuclear development. Prior to World War II, radiation safety concerned few beyond those chiefly at risk, including a limited number of doctors and technicians working with X-ray machines. The Manhattan Project changed all that. Building an atomic bomb required the construction of huge plants of novel design, the creation and handling of new elements with unknown properties, and unprecedented kinds of field testing. 134 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Such activities not only put thousands of workers at risk but threat­ ened the health and safety of large numbers of people living nearby. The bomb makers recognized these problems and accepted the re­ sponsibility of safeguarding people from undue exposure. Accord­ ingly, a special division was established to study radiation hazards and set appropriate safety standards. Hacker’s book is a highly detailed but easily readable account of that process, from the creation of the first health division of the Chi­ cago Metallurgical Laboratory in the early months of 1942 to the Crossroads test series in the South Pacific in the summer of 1946. According to Hacker, prewar practices, by and large, were simply expanded to meet the needs of the Manhattan Project. Consequently, radiation safety “remained firmly based on methods proved through nearly five decades of trial and error.” Although some new practices evolved, such as the routine use of him badges, “such changes for the most part simply augmented well-tried techniques” (p. 155). The au­ thor concludes that this approach was successful: “Applying later stan­ dards to the events of 1945 and 1946, some critics have questioned Trinity and Crossroads safety programs, but later standards . . . may owe more to technical skill or political climate than to new data or deeper understanding. The weight of evidence . . . still supportsjudg­ ments at the time that neither Trinity nor Crossroads directly harmed anyone” (p. 160). In the end...