ie
bf:
genes
February 22,974
Volume V, Number 6
Thats First Flverogen Death
AINOTIIER
MICRONESIAN
CLAIM
TO
FAME
The next day I was back in the same room I had occupie
more than a year before, when I had first been admitted 1
NIH. I had lobar pneumonia, and Johr Glick had hooke
me up to the familiar I.V. Two bottles of antibiotics drippe
alternately into my veins. This tme, I had the privilege
bed beside the window, and the bed near the door was o
cupied by a muscular young man with brown skin, cur
black hair, and a huge grin.
His name was odd—
He was, it turned or
from tlie Marshall Islands. He had. been a one-year-.
baby in 1954, wher we Americans tested our first delis
able hydrogen bomb on Bikini, one of the Marshalls.
As it happence, ] knew a good deal about the Bu
bomb. With the help of Dr. Ralph Lapp, an atomic sci
tist who used to act as mv mentor ia such matters, T !
done a lot of reporting or: it. So had brother Joe. As a resu
Joe and I were the first to describe, in our joint column,t
phenomenon of nuclear fallout.
Further remembrances
on the
‘acident
by Stewart Alsop
The Bikiai boinb was much more powerful than Edwa
Teller and the other scientists in charge had anticipate
Moreover, it had an unanticipated effect. It churned |
great moundsof earth below the explosion point. The ear
was turned into light dust by the force of the explosic
This heavily irradiated dust followed the wind patterns +
til it fell out of the skies. Suine of it fell on the Luc
Dragon, a Japanese trawler more than ninety miles frc
the explosion point. The meinbers of the crew all suffer
PRIVACY ACT MATERIAL REMOVED
[CONTINUED PAGE NINE!