4O1561 Approlrk United States Department of the Interior OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY WASHINGTON, D.C. 20240 [\ Mee} Honorable Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr. Speaker House of Representatives Washington, D.C. 20515 BEST COPY AVAILABLE Dear Mr. Speaker: There is enclosed a proposed bill "To authorize the appropriation of funds for the rehabilitation and resettlement of Bikini Atoll, Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, and for other purposes.". Bikini Atoll lies among the Marshall Islands, which are a part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands administered by the United States pursuant to an agreement with the Security Council of the United Nations. The United States carried on atcmic testing there between 1948 ard 1958 which severely damaged Bikini Atoll and rendered much of it uninhabitable. ’ The United States hed committed itself to returning the atoll to its original oymers when security purposes no longer required its use for testing or defense purpeses, and from 1958 onvard the people of Bikini increasingly pressed for a return. Between 1966 and 1967, the former Atomic Fnercy Consmissicn conducted several radiolcgical surveys, and recorted that after cleanup, a certain number of the islends of the atoll were safe for civilian habitation. Accordingly, cn August 12, 1968, President Johnson announced that Bikini Atoll was no longer required for the nuclear testing program or for defense purposes, and that the atoll would be returned to the people of Bikini following cleanup and rehabilitation. In his announcement, the President stressed that a modern and model community would be provided for the returning residents. In June 1975 an intensive ground radiological survey was conducted by ERDA and it revealed that the-original recormendations concerning Xo oF rome —— ori ee resettlement on Bikini Island needed drastic revision. It became evident that radionuclide intake in the plant food chain had been grossly miscalculated in terms of human consumption. The results of