US Nuclear Testing Research Articles

The Chinese nuclear tests, 1964–1996

A combination of intellectual rigor, technical sophistication, hard work, and intelligence gathering brought China into the world’s nuclear club in record-shattering time.

Half-Lives and Half-Truths: Confronting the Radioactive Legacies of the Cold War (review)

Reviewed by: Half-Lives and Half-Truths: Confronting the Radioactive Legacies of the Cold War Robert C. Kiste Half-Lives and Half-Truths: Confronting the Radioactive Legacies of the Cold War, edited by Barbara Rose Johnston. Santa Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research Press, 2007. ISBN 978-1-930618-82-4; x + 326 pages, tables, figures, maps, notes, references, index. US $27.95. While the nuclear era began with the development and use of atomic weapons by the United States near the end of World War II, the focus of this volume is the ensuing cold war between the United States and the former Soviet Union. The book’s thirteen chapters are authored or coauthored by fifteen anthropologists, most of whom have studied the culture and history of science, documented the legacy of the cold war, and conducted research with the aim to assist communities harmed by the arms race. The chapter by editor Barbara Rose Johnston, “Half-Lives, Half-Truths, and Other Radioactive Legacies of the Cold War,” introduces the volume. While several nations are known to have nuclear weapons (including China, France, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), others have the technical capacity to develop them. Drawing on the nuclear history of the United States and the Soviet Union, Johnston makes several observations that are of general relevance. The nuclear programs of both nations have had and continue to have devastating consequences for the peoples involved. Uranium mining and processing, weapon production facilities, the testing of nuclear weapons, and nuclear waste dumps have created “radiogenic communities.” Such communities suffer from unseen dangers of radiological contamination, which result in an increased incidence of a variety of cancers and other illnesses, miscarriages, births of congenitally deformed children, difficulties of caring for disabled children, and cause people to live with fear and anxiety over inter-generational and other long-term and unknown effects of radiation. Johnston notes that the ability of communities to comprehend, confront, [End Page 500] and address environmental and health problems is strongly linked to and constrained by a number of variables. The victims of radioactive pollution are psychologically traumatized and often stigmatized by neighboring peoples. They are relatively powerless and have a low position in the larger scheme of things. They are often indigenous peoples living on traditional or tribal lands in remote areas and are relatively poor. Very importantly, they are deprived of basic information. National security is the most commonly advanced rationale for the development of nuclear weapons. The cold-war security state required control over the science involved, the production of weapons, and the dissemination of information. Secrecy allowed the systematic use of half-truths and misinformation to pacify and alleviate public concerns, and detached scientists caught up in their work often lost sight of basic human needs and welfare. Animals are commonly used in laboratory research, and in reference to Marshall Islanders, Johnston quotes one researcher: “these people are more like us than mice” (25)—an astounding remark that seems to suggest the view that indigenous peoples are creatures of a lower order than the rest of humanity. Three chapters focus on the US nuclear testing program in the Pacific. Johnston’s chapter, from which the above quote was drawn, provides essential historical background. Holly M Barker, a researcher and, until 2008, adviser for the government of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, reviews the major issues and problems that have challenged that small island nation. David H Price provides a biographical sketch of Earle Reynolds, a physical anthropologist turned cold-war dissident, who gave up his career to challenge US nuclear activities in the Pacific. The remaining chapters provide a larger context, which allows a better understanding of US nuclear activities both at home and abroad during the cold-war era. The United States has conducted nuclear tests and related activities in the Pacific Islands and the western United States, including Alaska. In the Pacific, 67 atmospheric tests were conducted at Bikini and Enewetak Atolls in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958. Other tests were conducted on Johnston Island, and, in conjunction with the United Kingdom, on Christmas and Malden Islands in Kiribati. The people of...

Plutonium activities and 240Pu/ 239Pu atom ratios in sediment cores from the east China sea and Okinawa Trough: Sources and inventories

Plutonium concentrations and 240Pu/ 239Pu atom ratios in the East China Sea and Okinawa Trough sediment cores were determined by isotope dilution inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry after separation using ion-exchange chromatography. The results showed that 240Pu/ 239Pu atom ratios in the East China Sea and Okinawa Trough sediments, ranging from 0.21 to 0.33, were much higher than the reported value of global fallout (0.18). The highest 240Pu/ 239Pu ratios (0.32–0.33) were observed in the deepest Okinawa Trough sediment samples. These ratios suggested the US nuclear weapons tests in the early 1950s at the Pacific Proving Grounds in the Marshall Islands were a major source of plutonium in the East China Sea and Okinawa Trough sediments, in addition to the global fallout source. It was proposed that close-in fallout plutonium was delivered from the Pacific Proving Grounds test sites via early direct tropospheric fallout and transportation by the North Pacific Equatorial Circulation system and Kuroshio Current into the Okinawa Trough and East China Sea. The total 239 + 240 Pu inventories in the cores were about 150–200% of that expected from direct global fallout; about 46–67% of the total inventories were delivered from the Pacific Proving Grounds. Much higher 239 + 240 Pu inventories were observed in the East China Sea sediments than in sediments of the Okinawa Trough, because in the open oceans, part of the 239 + 240 Pu was still retained in the water column, and continued Pu scavenging was higher over the margin than the trough. According to the vertical distributions of 239 + 240 Pu activities and 240Pu/ 239Pu atom ratios in these cores, it was concluded that sediment mixing was the dominant process in controlling profiles of plutonium in this area. Faster mixing in the coastal samples has homogenized the entire 240Pu/ 239Pu ratio record today; slightly slower mixing and less scavenging in the Okinawa Trough have left the surface sediment ratios closer to the modern North Pacific water end member and higher ratios (0.30–0.34) at the bottom of the cores.

Bravo for the Marshallese: Regaining Control in a Post-Nuclear, Post-Colonial World (review)

Reviewed by: Bravo for the Marshallese: Regaining Control in a Post-Nuclear, Post-Colonial World Laurence Marshall Carucci Bravo for the Marshallese: Regaining Control in a Post-Nuclear, Post-Colonial World, by Holly M Barker. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thompson Learning, 2004. ISBN 0-534-61326-8; xv + 172 pages, tables, figures, maps, photographs, appendix, glossary, notes, bibliography, index. US$25.95. In Barbara Myerhoff's book Number Our Days (1978 ), Shmuel the tailor/ philosopher warns her not to put pins in people, deflate them, flatten them out, and sacrifice their multidimensionality. Shmuel counsels her to "leave them be. Don't try to make them stand still for your convenience. You don't ever know them. Let people surprise you" (Myerhoff 1978, 41). In turning lived existence into text or film, anthropologists can never leave people be. Moreover, entextualization inevitably involves transformation (Michael Silverstein and Greg Urban, Natural Histories of Discourse, 1996 ), but in transforming performances into text it is important not to deflate and flatten people out. Reading Holly M Barker's Bravo for the Marshallese, I sense the voices of Marshall Islanders—who are themselves lively and multifaceted—being flattened out by a theory that presents them unilaterally as victims of colonialism. Of course, there is no question that Marshall Islands residents, particularly those who reside in the northern atolls, have suffered severely from US nuclear testing after World War II. There is also no doubt that the consequences of those tests continue to affect Marshall Islanders today and will have substantial effects well into the future. Barker makes this point [End Page 445] well. She demonstrates how Marshallese social organization, particularly that of Rongelap people, has been radically disrupted by nuclear testing. She shows some alterations in Marshallese identities that were interwoven with a past etched into the landscape, and how people's daily activities have changed as a result of nuclear testing. Not only have residents of the northern atolls been displaced from their primordial homes, but Barker also points out how people's bodies have been infused with radionuclides, forcing them to change their images of themselves. Equally importantly, she demonstrates how the United States has tried to limit its liabilities by enforcing an artificial four-atoll boundary that excludes residents of Likiep, Ailuk, and adjacent atolls from consideration for nuclear damages. These images are important parts of a counter-history of the nuclear-testing era for Marshall Islanders. Barker's work is a critical counter-hegemonic account pointing to serious contradictions in the smoothly polished image of the United States as heroic world savior that fills many secondary school texts. She couches her work as anthropological advocacy rather than standard ethnography, and perhaps readers, especially the undergraduate audience for whom this book is written, should not expect her to delve much deeper. In the Marshall Islands, the perpetual sequence of US blunders is the only thing more earth-shattering than the nuclear detonations themselves. It is laudable for Barker to actively support the Marshallese pleas for fair compensation in the face of ongoing US resistance to paying for damages that have been established, in accord with US demands, in an internationally constituted Nuclear Claims Tribunal. Nonetheless, in her attempt to construct a history of nuclear testing as reflected in the accounts of Marshallese, Barker oversimplifies or obliterates both Marshallese and US histories of the cold-war era. For example, she assesses US activities from a presentist perspective, as if US scientists knew as much about radiation risks in 1954 as they do today; as if animals that were sacrificed to learn about the effects of radiation in 1946 should be viewed with the empathy of animal-rights advocates who began to gain salience in the 1980 s; as if the idea that no humans might survive the nuclear holocaust that many thought was inevitable was not a real fear embedded in the US psyche of the 1950 s. Barker does a commendable job of presenting materials derived from interviews focused on nuclear testing. Often, these stories are heart-rending and, generally, the translations are excellent. Nevertheless, the content of these interviews is heavily influenced by the contexts of their elicitation. They represent Marshallese framing themselves...

Protecting the South Pacific from Hazardous and Nuclear Waste Dumping: The Waigani Convention

The Convention to Ban the Importation Into Forum Island Countries of Hazardous and Radioactive Wastes and to Control the Transboundary Movement and Management of Hazardous Wastes within the South Pacific Region (the Waigani Convention) was adopted in Waigani, Papua New Guinea in September 1995. As at 17 August 1998, the Waigani Convention had not yet received the 10 ratifications required for its entry into force. While 13 members of the South Pacific Forum have signed the Convention, only four have ratified: Papua New Guinea, Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, and, on 17 August 1998, Australia. Negotiated over the course of two years under the auspices of the South Pacific Forum which has its headquarters at Suva, Fiji, the Waigani Convention is an important regional instrument that seeks to deal practically with a series of issues of special concern to countries within the South Pacific region. These include historical concerns over nuclear testing reignited by recent French tests in the region and a proposal by the Marshall Islands to create a nuclear waste disposal facility on Bikini Atoll, a site still contaminated from US nuclear tests which had taken place in the 1950s. Other interests reflected in the Convention, include the need to protect the fragility and vulnerability of island ecosystems and a concern that island nations might become a dumping ground for certain wastes. It could be tempting to island governments badly in need of foreign exchange to offer waste disposal facilities. Also of concern was the movement - or threatened increased movement - in and out of the South Pacific region of an ever increasing amount of hazardous wastes, including nuclear wastes, and the perceived need for a set of rules governing their import and export, disposal and recycling. The Waigani Convention represents an interesting example of a regional instrument which may facilitate micro-states acting in a co-ordinated fashion on a regional basis to gain the benefits of the global Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal (the Basel Convention) in a context where it remains impracticable for many island states with tiny bureaucracies to actively participate globally. It is especially interesting and significant that the negotiators and observers in Suva and Port Moresby found a new way of viewing these issues and concerns in designing a regional instrument intended to be wholly consistent with the already existing Basel Convention and all other pre-existing multilateral agreements to which the Parties to the Waigani Convention were also a Party. This article outlines the main provisions of the Waigani Convention, and considers the merits of this regional approach to the issue of hazardous and nuclear wastes. This article outlines the main provisions of the Waigani Convention, and considers the merits of this regional approach to the issue of hazardous and nuclear wastes.

On-the-job search: the case of Nevada Test Site contractor employees

The US nuclear testing moratorium has reduced employment levels at the Nevada Test Site (NTS). This study analyses the incidence, duration, and determinants of on-the-job search activity of NTS employees who expect permanent job losses. Empirical results support theoretical predictions originating from search theory, and suggest that high skilled white collar workers are the most likely to search while employed, and therefore, are the least likely to face severe dislocation problems.

Elements of Controversy: The Atomic Energy Commission and Radiation Safety in Nuclear Weapons Testing, 1947-1974

The main title is meaningless without the lengthy subtitle. The controversy referred to is the repeated charges that the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was irresponsible and secretive in the exposure of individuals to nuclear tests and their fallout. This controversy is dealt with directly only in an epilogue. The main part of the book is a straightforward presentation of information culled from recently declassified documents, including operational reports, standard operating procedures, official documents of all sorts, and interviews with individuals who participated in the US nuclear test programs. In a sense, it is a continuation of the account begun in the author's 1987 book<i>Dragon's Tail</i>. Hacker is careful to report AEC decisions on safety and known overexposures in as unbiased a manner as possible. This is a welcome change from the biases that are rampant in other recent accounts, eg, Gould and Goldman's 1990<i>Deadly Deceit: Low-Level Radiation, High-Level</i>

Day of two suns: US nuclear testing and the Pacific Islanders

Day of two suns: US nuclear testing and the Pacific Islanders

The Americas

The Americas

Yields of US and Soviet Nuclear Tests

The likelihood that the United States will negotiate a comprehensive or lowthreshold test ban treaty with the Soviet Union in the relatively near future depends not only on the ability of the US to monitor such an agreement but also on US perception of past Soviet compliance with treaties that limit nuclear testing. Of particular importance is the 1974 Threshold Test Ban Treaty, which prohibits tests of nuclear weapons exceeding 150 kilotons in yield. This treaty is unratified, but both the United States and the Soviet Union have avowed their compliance since 1976, when the treaty was scheduled to go into effect. (For an annotated list of treaties, see Herbert York's article in PHYSICS TODAY, March 1983, page 24.)

Identity and Relocation: The Bikini Case

38 years have elapsed since the Bikinians 1st learned of their impending relocation from Bikini atoll in the norther Marshall Islands due to its selection as a US nuclear test site. In 1946 they were still a little-travelled people and their identity had mainly been shaped by others who held them in low esteem. Relocation abruptly thrust the Bikinians into unwanted greater interaction with outsiders. At Rongerik they came into greater contact with Americans an ordeal that further eroded their self-confidence and on Kwajalein their enforced interaction with more acculturated wage laborers compounded negative feelings about their lack of sophistication. During this same period however the Bikinians began to see clearly the advantages of communicating often with the American authorities. By the late 1950s and 1960s a more positive image of themselves as Bikinians was emerging; they had come to view themselves as casualties of the US nuclear testing program. Due to a more favorable self-image the conviction of being victims of a great injustice and a variety of local complaints the Bikinians became more aggressive and more confident in their appeals and demands to US representatives. American administrations have been responsive to the community but the results of their actions have been mixed. The Kili development program produced no lasting benefits and the long-term provisions of food subsidies helped to make the Bikinians a dependent people -- a relationship with the US they do not find displeasing. Other Micronesians believe that the Bikinians have been astute negotiators with the US officials and consequently their stock has risen throughout the Marshalls. The Bikinians however remain a discontented people. The wisdom of providing a comparatively small society with considerable sums of money can be questioned; the long term impact of these actions have not been seriously considered.

CONCERNING A COMPREHENSIVE NUCLEAR TEST BAN

Abstract : Even if the issue of peaceful nuclear explosions should be resolved favorably from the US point of view, and even if a comprehensive test ban treaty were totally verifiable, US concurrence would still be a serious mistake. To think that a US-USSR ban on nuclear testing would result in arms control and nuclear non-proliferation is unwise. Arms competition between the US and the USSR is inevitable as long as arms are a fact of life. Limitations on numbers and costs can only be achieved through the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and agreements on Mutual Balanced Force Reductions. As for non-proliferation, a ban on US and USSR nuclear tests will not insure a halt to worldwide nuclear development. Experience with the Limited Test Ban Treaty has shown this to be true. Only if all nations agree could we be reasonably hopeful that a comprehensive test ban treaty would aid nonproliferation efforts. We have been able to deter nuclear war for more than 30 years. During that time, our conventional forces and our allies have been able to operate under the nuclear umbrella furnished by US strategic nuclear forces. This deterrence is based upon assurances that US forces could survive a first strike and still inflict severe retaliatory damage. In other words, it is based on a high level of confidence in the reliability of the force. Without nuclear testing, this reliability cannot be assured nor maintained. Weapon system capability would erode; the capability of nuclear weapon laboratories would erode; and our capability to improve the force would erode. There are those who will say that safeguards would prevent these erosions, just as the Limited Test Ban Treaty safeguards have resulted in a strong US nuclear program since 1963. However, these safeguards would be without substance under a comprehensive test ban treaty.

External dose estimates for future inhabitants of eniwetok atoll.

Measurements of environmental γ radiation levels on Eniwetok Atoll were combined with pertinent population distributions and expected future life styles to assess the external doses that could be received by the Marshallese people on their return to the former US nuclear weapons test site in the Pacific.