he

eMedia ate pada eet

Admiral Mustin, Colone! Rawlings and Ogle inspect the

BIKINI . ..

mess hall on Bikini Island. Building is in relatively good
condition except that it lacks roof covering.

continued from page 6

had its story
the lettuce airlift for Jack
Clark’s birthday on Able Island; the helicopter
evacuation of Clark and Gaelen Felt from the
control bunker on Enyu after a shot which raised
the radiation level above acceptable levels; a

cryptic notation on a switchbox about Dennis

. . the Menace; the castle-like station on George
Island first used by Felt and later by Art Cox,
J-15 group leader, and the nearby camp on Fox

swamped and battered by an unexpectedly highyield thermonuclear shot on Operation Castle;

the helicopter taxi service to work stations all

over the atoll; and at day’s end the Bikini martini, the driest of all, which still gets its vermouth
from that bottle supposedlyattached to one of the
early bombs by a scientist who will remain
unnamed,
On Enyu, cleanup is well along with most expendable structures already razed and hauled to
the barges which will dump the debris into the
sea. Incidentally, the principal hazard from most

of the debris on Bikini and Enyu1s believed to be

more of an industrial type rather than radiologi-

cal. But when the Bikinians do return, they will
be well looked after. The AEC, charged with the
8

radiological safety of the islanders, has appointed

Dr. Robert A. Conard, Brookhaven National
Laboratory, to conductroutine medical surveillance of the people as they come back to their
homeatoll.
The ad hoc consultant committee which, in
1968, declared the atoll once moresafe for human

habitation also recommended, as a reasonable pre-

caution, that continual checks be made on the
Bikinians’ radiation exposurestatus after their return to the atoll. Dr. Conard has just returned
from Kili, where the former Bikinians nowlive.
While there he began his baseline studies by ob-

taining urine samples from about half of the first

work party going back to help rehabilitate the
atoll. Detailed plans for the medical surveillance
are not yet complete, but are expected to center on
urine analyses and whole body counting.
Dr. Conard believes that there will probably
be some measurable increase in the radioactive
body burden of the returned Bikinians after they
are living on the homeatoll, but it will be very

low and is not expected to cause any medical
problem.
continued on page 10

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