CCMMENTS I have not attempted a thorough review of your draft report on Rongelap but, in consultation with Or. Bruce Wachholz, have a few comments on the material that refers to our 1982 bilingual book, “The Meaning of Radiation for Those Atolls in the Northern Part of the Marshall Islands That Were Surveyed in- 1978.” Pages 3 and 4: I/hileyour draft report purports to be a review of the 1982 DOE bilingual book, it does not specifically describe that book’s purpose, thereby ascribing to it a much broader objective. Our book was not intended to assess the consequences of past exposure of the people living on the atolls, but only to give the Marshallese information about the existing radiation levels and the meaning of those levels with respect to human health, so that they themselves might be able to make decisions about It was not an “assessment of danger the future use of the northern atolls. on R-p--or lack thereof--” a: indicated on page 3. It reported to the Marshall&se the results of the radiological survey made by Dr. Robison and his colleagues at Livermore and tried to help them understand the meaning of the radiation doses projected in the Livermore reports for persons living on the atolls over the next 30 years. That is why such a great Also, you have greatly effort was made to write the book in Marshallese. . oversimplified the situation in your statement on pages 3 and 4 about the Factors other than our book dominated Rongelap people moving to Kwajalein. their decision to leave Rongelap. I . * . It was not the book’s purpose to draw conclusions about the safety of the atol 1s. That properly is a judgment to be made by others. Moreover, there is no statement in the book about Rongelap being safe. Therefore, the statement on page 17 of your February 20, 1988 draft, paragraph 2, lines 4-5, “The booklet’s conclusion that Rongelap was safe was never accepted by the people,” is incorrect. Further, the book was delivered and described to Rongelapleaders, leaders from other atolls, and officials of the Marshallese government in a friendly, nonhostile meeting at Majuro in December 1982. The Rongelap representatives were much more interested in the health of the current population than in projections for the future. I was not present during a subsequent visit to Rongelap by DOE officials to discuss the information in the book, where I understand one of the Rongelap people made a hostile threat. On page 22, the first paragraph again misrepresents the DOE book as a risk assessment, and paragraph 2 emphasizes that “DOE accepted the estimates of exposure and dose reported by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and EG&G Corporation.” This also is misleading: the authors were not asked to do a risk assessment but rather to communicate the results of the Livermore survey (also a DOE effort) to the Marshallese. “d . . On page 25, paragraph 2 asks why the book did not use Brookhaven’s in-vivo counting data for Rongelap. It must be remembered that the book, written in 1982, addressed all the atolls of the northern Marshall Islands not just Rongelap. Thus, there was interest in being consistent, using the same approach for all atolls; in-vivo counting data were not available for all people in the Northern Marshalls. More importantly, as noted before, the