worry--if there were, the men would not be on the island. Anyway, the test was so far away. At about 11° 33' north latitude and 165° 32' east longitude was the island of Bikini, Bikini Atoll, some 229.42 square miles of turquoise waters surrounded by a reef sporting 36 islands or islets. On one of those islets sat a device surrounded by steel and concrete and costing millions of dollars. ‘The device represented the culmina- tion of the efforts of the German scientists at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in 1938, Enrico Fermi and his Chicago Group in 1942, the Manhattan Project which developed the first atomic bombs, and postwar efforts by such renowned scientists as Dr. Edward Teller, together with the testing at the Pacific Proving Grounds of bikini and Enewetok. Cold, inorganic and impersonal--it was just there. Composed of 200 pounds of uranium 235, 200 pcunds of lithium deuteride, and more than a ton of uranium 238, complicated mechanisms and electronic circuitry to insure it would go off, and go off at the proper time upon a radio command. ‘The device was there, and its sensory apparatus awaited the human signal to order it to transform itself into a living, terrifying giant--a giant which would live and in its living destroy itself and everything within its reach. Cold, efficient, and unfeeling, it sat on the island, oblivious to the muffled roar of the surf on the reef. hougaly thirty miles east of the device and seventy miles west of Kongelap, ships of Joint Task Force Seven heaved and fell against the swells. Aboard the dull, grey ships were five basic groups comprising the waole force: 7.1 scientifie and technical personnel; Cee 33s 7.2 the Army;