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UNFIT PARADISE —Jelodrik Jakeo strolis the beach at Bikini with Carlton, one of his seven children. They face
Times pho
Bictali fe!
Ilancars“les Ageain to Reciati
Continued from First Page
From tre front porch of his conTete Becca Pouse
f
overlooxing Bikyni
Togaes ree ood man recetne ion
veers pel.cen cepariure and rewurn.
There was mea starynud, muen privetion. Trere was shutuing from one
alien tslay.t to another and another
and yelanciuner. There was scattering
ef famiv and fmends, disiccation.
nearly to.n disruption of a hitherto
quiet, untroubied wayoflife.
“Mavbe ihere were some times
when | was not unhappy,” he admitted. “But... every day I remembered B:ixim:. And every day I wanted
to come tack because it is my homeland, because Bikim is a beautiful
place.”
He was auret, deferentially polite.
Bui at last. in reply to the stranger's
question, Andrew dropped the emo-
tuunal veil sughtly.
How. the stranger asked, will he
react when he leaves Bikini once
agcin and forever?
“I will ween.” he said. “I will feel
anger. . .] ~:l] not go. I will sit here.
‘They will have to carry me away.”
He sad ne also believed some of
the others would do the same as he,
feel the same as he.
And how. after all that had happened to nim and his peopie since
geographically, teo. The :dea of Operauon Crossrcads was to see what the
atomic bemo wowd do to a naval
fieet, The three A-bombs of World
War Il nada oecn expiocea in the New
Mexico uesert and over the Japanese
cies of Hirosnima and Nagasaki.
Other sites were considered. But
according to Crossrcads historian
Neal Hines. “Bikimi fuifilled all the
conditions of climate and isolation. It
was... 2,000 miles west southwest
of Honolulu... but it also was accessible. ... Its inhabitants, who
then numbered 162, could be moved
to anotheratoll.”
(Most other sources say the population then was 166. Since then there
has been a population explosion. Today §60 persons claim land rights in
Bikini Atoll—140 now living on Bikini
Isiand. 450 on Kili, and the others
scattered throughout the Marshalls.)
There was concern on the part of
the U.S. fishing industry that the test
blasts might hurt the mch commercial
fishing grounds. There also were so
many complaints from animal lovers
that plans to use dogs as test ammals
were canceled. But there 1s no recorded protest against removing the
Bikinians from their ancestral homeland.
“In retrospect ... you'd have to
Say the removal was the ‘right of the
conqueror,’ said Jim Winn, a trans-
FP
rmsANS
_ow
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a,wy
planted Kansan whois district attor-
‘You'd have to say
the removal was the
right of the conqueror.’
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ney of the Pacific Trust Territory's
Marshall Islands District.
“Our attitude must have been that
we, at the cost of several thousand
American lives; took the Marshails
. took this whole area of the Pacific from the Japanese. And. . . part
of it was the altitune, ‘Well, they (he
Poumans! are cus hte hrown Pas pie
was.
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