My name is Robert Conard.
AS an atonic veteran and one who actively
participated in Operation CROSSROADS I would like to share with you
some of my recollections of the radiological safety of the operation.
During the war
Pacific.
After
I was medical officer aboard a Cruiser in the
my return,
later
on,
I was
on duty at
the Naval
Medical Center in Bethesda and was asked by the Navy to participate
as
a
radiological
safety officer
at Operation CROSSROADS.
I agreed
and thus began for me a life-long career in the field of radiation
effects.
Following CROSSROADS I participated as a Rad-Safe officer
at Operation GREENHOUSE at Eniwetak and on Several Nevada tests.
Later, at the Naval Medical Research Institute I carried out
research studies on the effects of radiation in animals.
l,
1954,
On March
the unfortunate accidental fallout exposure of 240
Marshallese and 28 American Servicemen occurred in the Marshall
Islands following detonation of a large thermonuclear device at
Bikini.
I was a member of the medical team involved in the
examination and care of these people.
I then went to Brookhaven
National Laboratory after leaving the Navy where for twenty-five
years,
until my retirement six years ago,
I headed up the continuing
medical care of the Marshallese people.
In preparation for CROSSROADS Operation I was sent,
group of medical officers,
along with a
to various National Laboratories for
intensive indoctrination in radiological safety procedures for four