VIAINIENGVAVT CFINU EAI stem ee HR me ee <r — ..- Bs) Cee Seen) 16 73°03 0:41 see ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION | . WASHINGTON, 0.C. ' ATO No. Tel. L-191 973-3335 or , 973-3446 20545 f MIE | FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Monday, August 12, 1968) (NOTE TO EDITORS AND CORRESPONDENTS: Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, Chairman of the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission, today issued the following statement on AEC's role in the decision to allow the former residents of Bikini to return to their atoll.) It has been greatly satisfying to my fellow Commission- ers and me to take part in the decision, announced today by President Johnson, to return the Bikinians to their atoll. The attached AEC report on the radiation survey of Bikini was a cornerstone of that decision. The réport, which declares the atoll once again safe for human habitation, represents the work of many highly qualified men, including the scientific team which surveyed the islands in 1967 and the special consultant committee of experts who produced the report. _ It has been just over 10 years since the last nuclear test took place at Bikini on July 22, 1958. The intervening years have brought a remarkable recovery on the islands, as AEC sponsored research teams noted in both 1964 and 1967. The 1967 survey was made at the request of the Secretary of the Interior whose department is responsible for the welfare of the Bikini natives. The Bikinians were moved from their atoll in 1946 before the first nuclear test took place. The team which visited the atoll in 1967 included radiological and health physicists, marine biologists, a tropical agriculturalist, an anthropologist and representatives of the Pacific Islands Trust Territories, Department of the Interior. (more)