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UNFIT PARADISE -Jelodrik Jakeo strolls the beach at Bikini with Carlton, one of his seven children. They face r
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From ine front porch of his concrete bcc, Fouse overlooxing Bikini
Fagaen tre id man recatied the lorz
wears ol. cen eepariure and return.
There Was near Starvation, much privation. Trere was shutthng from one
alien islar.t to another and another
and vel arciner, Therc wasScattering
ef famiy and fr: ends, cisiocation,
nearly tota disruption of a hitherto
quiet, untroubied wayoflife.
“Maybe ihere were some times
when | was not unhappy,” he admit-
ted. “But... every day I remembered Bikin:. And every day I wanted
to come tack because it is my homeland, because Bikim is a beautiful
place.”
He was quiet, deferentially polite.
But at last. in reply to the stranger's
question, Andrew dropped the emotional veil sughtly.
How. the stranger asked, will he
react when he leaves Bikini once
agcin and forever?
“| will ween.” he said. “I will feel
anger. . .I «:U not go, I will sit here.
Thev will have to carry me away.”
He saidhe also beiieved some of
the others would do the same as he,
feei the same as he.
And how. after all that had happened to nim and his people since
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geopraphically, tco. The idea of Operation Crossroads was to see what the
atomic bomp would do to a naval
ficeet. The three A-bombs of World
War I] naa oecn expicaca in the New
Mexico uesert and over the Japanese
ciues of Hiresnima and Nagasaki.
Other sites were considered. But
according to Crossreads historian
Neal Hines, “Bikini fulfilled all the
conditions of climate andisolation. It
was... 2,500 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 US. fishing industry that the test
blasts might hurt the nch commercial
fishing grounds. There also were so
many complaints from animal lovers
that plans to use dogs as test ammals
were canceled. But there is 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,’ ’ sad Jim Winn,a trans-
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planted Kansan whois district attor-
‘You'd have to say
the removal was the
right of the conqueror.”
AE:
1916. ard ane feel now about the
san tyuersed, per bane em barrassea tf. “ne Siena amd by tre
fact that ‘re questioner Was an
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 Marshalls
. . . took this whole area of the Pacific from the Japanese. And. . . part
of it was the attitude, “Well, hey Che
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RADIOACTIVE BREW —JelodikJ
tenped ta flaw chrecthy
vard cacanm that here
heed
whera he lets at termont for several days to procut
mildiy alcoholic beverane Althouch tre coconuts are roma
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