TOBY'S CORNER

Date: 30 April 1999

The Marshall Islands

The Marshall Islands consist out of 29 atolls and five islands. The atolls of the Marshall Islands are scattered over 357.000 square miles of a lonely part of the world located north of the equator in the Pacific Ocean. They help define a geographic area referred to as Micronesia. (Niedenthal)

After their discovery in 1600 they were used primarily as a source for producing copra oil from coconuts. Because of the location of the islands it created especially for the Bikinians a well integrated society bound together by close extended family association and tradition, where the amount of land you owned was a measure of your health. (Niedentahl)

In the early 1900's the Japanese began to administer the Marshall Islands, but in February 1944 the Americans took it over. After the war, in December 1945, President Harry S. Truman issued a directive to Army and Navy officials that joint testing of nuclear weapons would be necessary "to determine the effect of atomic bombs on American warships". The United Stated had chosen Bikini Islands as their test location, because of its location away from regular air and see routes. This was the starting point for one of the biggest acts of inhumanity the Americans could do. In the act of bombing the Marshall Islands the United States disrespected life in any form at the Marshall Islands and destroyed one of the last paradises on earth.(Niedenthal)

The United States picked a Sunday morning after church to ask the Bikinians if they were willing to leave their atoll temporarily, so that the United Stated could do some atomic testing for "the good of mankind and to end all world wars". The unknowing and very confused King Juda stood up and announced, after a discussion with his people, that they will go believing that everything is in the hands of God. But there was very little question that the plutonium bombs ready for testing would work, the purpose of Operation Crossroads was to evacuate impacts on existing nuclear weapons rather to experiment with any new designs (York 19). It also was no accident that journalists from around the world, photographers and newsreel were solicitously encouraged to observe Operation Crossroads in all its breathtaking, ave-inspiring atomic glory. But the atomic test supervisors were able to meticulously control the stories those journalists turned in. All stories were most definitely the sole of official sources. (Wasserman, Chapter 2)

Shortly after all preparations for Operation Crossroads were done, the Bikinians were removed from their island. They were send to Rongerick Atoll, 125 miles away from Bikini. The Bikinians were supposed to stay at Rongerick only for a short time and then return back to Bikini. But that was a big lie, it actually took more than forty years for them to return back to their home (Niedenthal). One reason for that was that the United States didn’t stop testing atomic weapons after two or three detonations, they even splat they playground out over the Marshall Islands, and as a matter of fact twenty-three atomic and hydrogen bombs were detonated over a time of a dozen years. (Wasserman, Chapter 4)

One of the cruelest things the United States could do in this time was that it did not respect life in any form at the Marshall Islands. When the Americans send the Bikinians to Rongerick Atoll, the administration left the Bikinians food stores sufficient only for several weeks. Also the Rongerick Atoll was considered unlivable by the Bikinians due to its seize, which is only 1/6 of the seize of Bikini Atoll and because it has an inadequate water and food supply. As the food supply on Rongerick quickly ran out, the Bikinians began to suffer from starvation and fish poisoning due to the lack of eatable fish in the lagoon (Niedentahl). Harold Ickes, a reporter, stated in his syndicated column Man to Man that, "The natives are actually and literally starving to death".By 1947 the small population of the Bikinians was confronted with near starvation, but to make it even worse, in May 1947 a huge fire damaged many of the coconut trees, which is an essential part of their living and by July, when a medical officer visited the island, the Bikinian people were found to be suffering from malnutrition. Immediate preparations began for the transfer of the Bikinians to Ujelang Atoll in the western Marshalls. But, however, the United States selected Enewetak Atoll as a second nuclear weapons test site. The Navy then decided that it would be easier to move the Enewetak people to Ujelang and so the Bikinians ended up staying at Rongerick Atoll. Finally in November 1948 the Bikinians could settle down at Kili Islandm after they had spend almost two years at Rongerick Atoll. (Niedenthal)

This situation became for the Bikinians even worse in 1952, when the United States started Operation Castle. This was a series of tests that would also include the first air-deliverable, and the largest hydrogen bomb ever detonated by the United States. But, however, the Unites States did not think about warning the natives of the Marshall Island, even so the United States officials knew that the natives and the Islands would become contaminated and decided nothing to do about it, they more likely decided to picked them as Guinea pigs for their nuclear testings, which also again shows the cold and cruel behavior to the natives.As the test date of the Bravo shoot grew near, documented proof exists that Joint Task Force-7 knew that the winds were blowing east from Bikini towards Rongerick Atoll and other inhabited islands, because of the continuos reports coming from their weather station located on Bikini Island (Niedenthal). According to a defense nuclear report on the Bravo blast, the weather briefing the day before the detonation stated, that there would be "no significant fallout... for the populated Marshalls". Later, at 6 p.m., however, the predicted winds were less favorable; nevertheless, the decision to shoot was reaffirmed, but with another review of the winds scheduled for midnight. The midnight briefing "indicates less favorable winds at 10.000 to 25.000 foot level". Winds at 20.000 feet "were headed for Rongelap to the east", and "it was recognized that both Bikini and Enewetak Island would probably be contaminated". (Niedenthal)

The decision to go forward with the test, knowing that the winds were blowing in the direction of inhabited atolls, was essentially a decision to irradiate the atolls of the northern Marshall Islands, and moreover, to irradiate the people who were still living on them. On March 1, 1954, the hydrogen bomb, code named Bravo, was detonated. A raging fireball of intense heat, that measured into the millions of degrees, shot skyward at a rate of 300 miles per hour. The Rongelapese, not understanding what was happening, watched as two suns rose that morning and they observed with amazement the radioactive dust, soon forming a two inches deep layer at their island, turning the drinking water into a brackish yellow (Niedenthal). "We saw a flash of lighting in the west like a second sun rising" Anjain, magistrate of Rongelap, remembers. "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".(Wasserman, Chapter 4) The people also experienced severe vomiting and diaherra, their hair began to fall out, the island fell into a state of terrified panic. (Niedenthal)

The "success" of the hydrogen bomb was beyond the wildest dreams of the American scientists who were involved in the detonation, they thought that the blast would only carry a payload of approximately three megatons. The Americans being in the neighboring Rongerick Atoll and knowing about the radiation put on extra clothing and ducked inside a tightly closed building. All twenty eight Americans got evacuated within thirty-four hours, after the monitoring equipment capable of measuring one hundred millirads per hour went of scale. (Wasserman, Chapter 4) But what happened to the natives being still on their island and getting more and more contaminated? It took two days to evacuate the natives being on Rongelap Island, which was even closer to the Bravo blast, and it is startling to note again that none of those islanders were evacuated prior to this blast or even before the subsequent nuclear weapon tests. 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 the hydrogen bomb tests in this area and out of twenty-two Rongelap children exposed to the fallout from the Bravo test, nineteen have had thyroid nodules surgically removed (Johnson, 28). In the spring of 1954, Bikiar, Ailinginae, Rongelap, and Rongerick were all contaminated by the Yankee and Union weapon tests which were detonated at Bikini atoll. They yielded the equivalent of 6.9 and 13.5 megatons of TNT respectively. "As soon as the war ended, we located the one spot on earth that hadn’t been touched by the war and blew it to hell", so comedian Bob Hope about Operation Crossroads. (Niedentahl)

After the United States were done with their atomic tests they were actually and morally supposed to bring the natives back to their homes and assist them in rebuilding new house and cleaning up all the radioactive waste and also help to built up a new ecosystem. But the United States did not really support the natives and the few things they did were full of mistakes and took advantage of the poor natives. During this time the Bikinian signed a agreement with the United States government, turning all use rights of Bikini atoll over. The agreement stated, that any future claims by the Bikinians based on the use of Bikini by the government of the United States, or on the moving of the Bikinian people from Bikini Atoll to Kili Island would have to be made against the Bikinian leader and not against the United States government. In return the Bikinians were given full use rights to Kili and several islands in Jaluit Atoll. In addition the agreement included $25.000 in cash and additional $300.000 trust fund which yielded a semi-annual interest payment of approximately $5000. This is only about $15 per person a year. This laughable agreement shows how the Bikinians were ripped off by the United States government. This agreement was made by the Bikinians without the benefit of legal representation. (Niedenthal)

The United States continued its failure to help the Bikinians when they got struck by typhoon Lola late in 1957 and so the natives had to continue fighting the problems associated with inadequate food supplies throughout 1960. There were no food supplies howsoever from the United States. After some time the natives began to refer to it as a "prison" island. To survive, they had to start buying food with their tiny supplemental income.(Niedentahl)

Finally in 1967 the United States on false promises began considering the possibility of returning the Bikinians to their homes. An AEC study stated:

Well water could be used safely by the natives upon their return to Bikini. It appears that radio activities in the drinking water may be ignored from a radiological safety standpoint... The exposures of radiation that would result from the repatriation of the Bikini people do not offer a significant threat to their health and safety

After that study president Lyndon B. Johnson promised that "It is our goal to assist the people of Bikini to built on these once desolated islands a new and model community". He then ordered Bikini to be resettled "with all possible dispatch". However the question is how could the American government know that life was possible again at Bikini could not have checked for radiation, or did they know about the still high radiation at Bikini?

A lawsuit of 1975 stated, that the United States had used highly sophistical and technical radiation detection equipment at Enewetak Atoll, but had refused to employ it at Bikini. And so the Bikinian, unaware of the severity of the radiological danger, remained on their contaminated islands (Niedenthal). Nelson Anjain, fifty two, said: "... 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".(Wasserman, Chapter 4)

With this paper I tried to show what kind of a disaster the United States created at Bikini Island and at least some of the mistakes they did. But I don’t want you to think the United States never compensated their errors, as it took some time until they recognized, what they had done. In the 90's the Marshall Islands began to recover again. Especially Bikini which is now a vacation paradise for divers, now that the environment has returned to its old beauty. I think in the 90's the American government did a great job of returning the natives to their islands and restoring the islands, but I can’t forget all the people who where contaminated and those who died.

Works Cited

Johnson, Giff. "Paradise Lost." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists December 1980: 26.

                    Niedenthal, Jack. "A short History of the People of Bikini

    Atoll." 9 April 1999. 5:20 p.m.

                    Niedenthal, Jack. "Bikini Facts." 18 April 1999. 8:45 a.m.

Wasserman, Harvey and Norman Solomon. "Killing Our Own - The Disaster of America’s         Experience with Atomic Radiation." New York: Delta, 1982.