Weisgall to the Marshallese people in its role as U.N. during the testing program. The 1946 Baker shot alone left 500,000 cons of radioactive mud in the lagoon. Nevertheless, oficial Navy pronouncements remained optimistic con- trustee. One can only wonder where the American nuclear energy industry would be today if the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979 had perceptibly injured several hundred USS. citizens. In 1958 President Eisenhower declared a moratorium on U.S. atmospheric nuclear cerning Bikini’s condition. A 1947 release is typical: “‘Scientists now engaged in an in- tensive six-week survey of the Bikini Aroll can find few visible effects of [the atomic tests]."' The aroll, the release continued. is “the same placid palm-nnged lagoon aon which King Juda and his subjects sailed in testing. ending the 12-year testing program in the Marshall Islands and raising the Bikinians’ hopes for resettlement. It was not until 1967, however. that a blue-ribbon ad hoc committee appointed by the AEC reviewed outrigger canoes.” Among the U.S. tests was the 1954 Bravo the results of a radiological survey of Bikini shor, the second of the hydrogen bomb tests. 750 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. Bravo. the largest single nuclear explosion detonated by the United States. was so powerful that it vaporized several smal! islands and parts of others in Bikini Arcoll and declared the atoll ‘‘once again safe for human habitation.”” The committee. which according to the AEC’s chairman consisted of “eight of the most highly qualificd experts available.” concluded that “the exposures to radiation that would result from the repatriation of the Bikini people do not offer a signifi- Moreover, what was described at the time as an unprecedented shift in wind direction sent the 20-mile-high cloud of radioactive particles from the blast drifting 240 miles eastward across Bikini and several inhabited atolls in the Marshalls. In fact. U.S. officials had received an incomplete and alarming report concerning possible changes in the wind direction. Rongelap and Utirik atolls were in the path of the fallout, which fluctered down like snowflakes. Ninety per cent of the Rongelapese people suffered skin lesions and loss of hair. Today. 19 of 21 Rongelapese who were ° and left a one-mile circular hole in the reef.’ canc threat to their health and safery."’ A year later Johnson announced that ‘‘the major islands of the atoll] are now safe for human habication.”” and he ordered the atoll reha- bilitaced and resettled “‘with all possible dispatch.” One Navy press release reported that the “natives are delighted, enthusiastic about the atomic bomb.” The Bikinians on Kili were jubilanc at the news. and nine of them were taken on a under 12 years old at the time of the ironically reconnaissance of Bikini. Their elation soon roid tumo.s or other radiation-related illnesses. The people of Utirik, who were not removed from their atoll until more than three days after the blast. have recently experienced a sudden increase in thyroid diseases and cancers. The United States has paid several thousand dollars in compensation to the two peoples, and it will provide them with medical care in the post-trusteeship period. But they, like the Bikinians, are living legacies of the double standard the United States applied homeland of their memories had disappeared: the coconut trees were gone. and only scrub vegetation remained. One journalist reported code-named Bravo shot have developed thy- 84. turned to shock and sorrow. The idyllic that ‘‘areas closer to the bomb sites have the look of African desert country, with scrub trees and brush in command of parched land.” On seeing the site of the Bravo shot. where blue water and sand bars were all that re- mained ofthree or four islands, the Bikinians declared that their islands had lost their bones. One of the leaders was so overcome that he wept openly. 85.