IO OVE AKL VES 430 U.S. ENERGY RESEARCH & DEVELOPNENT AC) lay ADMINISTRATPO/N, tecThw -¢ URREVT- HIS TORY Wes EE Ennvonmenta, Reseouth 462 der Def} ysoanwooswierd Mew York Times News Service a7 -1Q773 A-Test Atoll Being Resettled "wha the good fishing In the lagoon. andtie, for it was an important occa- They also remember World War II, sion, expreased his gratitude. re NEWETAK, Marshall Islands — when thoy had to flee to outlying Is- . The people of Enewétak were si:ip- lands and when gome were killed — EACH AMERICAN at the fenst away 30 yeare ago, made home- jwnether by Japanese or Americans, was festooned with cowrie-shell necksa by American flat so that nuclear it did not matter, Yo the old, just re- laces. gifts of the Enewetakese: The weapons could be tested on thelr atoll turning home maybe enough. Mm the Western Pacific. [ |people who had spent an anhappy, sometime hungry 30 years in exile on MANY MORE ARE young, but Ujelanng,125 mites to the southwest. since birth the idea of their homeland Were offering gifts to the people who has been instilled in them on an alien had caused it all. the 40 tiny Islands in the Enewetak psiand. Chief Peter, now more than 60 Now some of them, 75 of a total of 330, have returned to Japtan, one of Atoll, to make @ stert toward reset- tling thelr homelfnd on a place that had not been9 test site. 4 “Yokwe Kom,"' meaning “Welcome Atl” in Marshallese, proclaimed the sign at the Japtan pier as the old chief, Johanes Poter, led his people home last month. Their re- Many of the teen-agers are be- Years old — heis not aure of his age Heved to be reatiess for a more — Said that he had no focting of hate “modern” life on the bigger islands, for the Americans. At one time they Even so,al! joined tn the experience took our Island,” he seld. “We werc of homecoming. not told “ys The Americans came They sang the hymns of a refugee 214 sald, Press Intelgence, Ince WASHINGTON, D.C. Front Page ede Page £0008 Other Page WASatds TON, D.C. STAR APR 4 1 1977 E - 353,168 S - 336,097 BETWEEN 18 AND 1858 the ‘We're going to use your is- morthern islands of Enewetak were people, hymns of longing and faith ands." But now they have returned cocked hy 4] nuclear tests, including and thankagiving. They cast a practi- ‘the islands to us. We are here and we the first explosion of the hydrogen bemb. Through much of the | : turn, long planned and even louger cal eye over the broad lagoon and @Fe happy.” sought, is an experiment in the reha. dennegrowth of the smell ieland's inOD Japtan the islanders have five after the United States and the Soviet terior, finding suspect well water long, low buildings af niucurrosive Union agreed to a prohibition on bilitation of islands that suffered ihe only a few coccnut palm and arcow- COfFrugated steel, with concrete atmospheric nuclear testing. the laeavages of nuclear testing. Onty time roat and no breadtrulto s pandanis. nocs. One building is the coniraunity goun continued to be used as a ple can determine how and the “Ver d w! ‘ center, part school and past church: “catcher's mitt,” as an American to what extem life on the ‘Reade " "he ch aPpened fo the rest are partitioned mto living official put it, for test missiles fired f00n .and . Enewetak -- that is the preferred interview after inspecting Japtan. quarters, | from Vandenberg Air Force Base in spelling nov for what was known a4 “The: cut down most of the trees. It OP the secand day the people were Catifornta. Eniwetok — evfll ever be the same does not took like when we tIved here alreadysettling in. Qld wonten were The Enewetak isles were a frail valn, before.” ee frying fish over open fires. Men were habiiat to begin with. Two of the Some of the people are otd and ‘On their first evening here, on C2Sting nets into the surf and hauling smaller ones were obliterated by the let. explosions. Deep craters pock others. have memorics of the palm and March 15,-the pecple gathered in a '® mu The rusting wreckage of war and nupandanus, the delicious coconnt crab prove of palm by the coral shore and Earlier in the day some of the peoeasted on roast pig, coconut crab, le were taken by boat to the main is- clear testing lies on the sand. In alt, the 40 remaining islands taro, coconut pudding and Coca-Cola, land, where 100 Americans operate Their host wae the American govern. an airfield, a radio navigation station amount to less than three square mites of dry land. ment, which had summarily ousted and a marinesciences laboratory. . . Enewetak, lying 2,400 mil¢s southBikini, another atoll, was also used them in 1947 and was now welcomin west of Honolulu, and about halfway for nuclear testing until an accident ‘them home, paying the way wit money anc promises of a general to the Philippines, is one of the many there in 1954 rained radinactive fallcleanup of the entire atoll, except for island groups, called atolls, that form out on a Japanese fishing vessel and at least one island that remains so the Marshall Islands and are admin- the people of a neighboring island, scarred and contaminated that it will istered by the United States as part Rongelap. Enewetak, being more rethe Trust Territory of the Pacific mote and having a huge airstrip, be used as an off-limit dumping of Islanda. bore the brunt of the American test ground for radioactive wastes. program. Chief Peter, wearing a white shirt conta). I001 400 : | | "9 5 \Ak