Eight of the most highly qualified experts available
were asked to review the survey material.
After meeting
with members of the survey team and examining their reports,
these consultants. reached the unanimous contlusion that it
would be radiologically safe to allow the Bikini people to
return to their home atoll.
While Bikini is best known as a weapons testing site,
it has also contributed significantly to man's knowledge
of the long term effects of radiation on an environment.
During the years when radiation levels were too high
for people to live there permanently, the AEC sponsored
several scientific studies on the atoll.
In fact, Bikini
truly served as a liviny ecological laboratory.
Before it was either a proving ground or laboratory,
though, Bikini was a home land.
Having been closely
associated with nuclear energy, and Bikini, for all these
years,
I find it particularly gratifying now to take part
in the atoll's return to usefulness as a home for the
Bikinian people.
Copies of the technical data from the survey are
available for examination at the Public Document Room in
AEC's Washington office at 1717 H Street.